tracking a rodent

Dear Aspiring Mouse Pursuer,

This thread reminds me of the work of Laurence Stern. Back at the Dawn of the Novel (1700s) he wrote "Tristram Shandy". The book is 400 pages long and in it Stern does not succeed in getting his character even BORN before it ends.

A lot of very amusing things happen before that time, however.

Possessor of my Own Collection of Mouse Turds, Leonard

That sounds like my kind of book. I'll take a look at it. Since you have read Tristram Shandy, maybe you have also looked at Finnegans Wake. If so, do you think you can compare them? I've known about Tristram Shandy for some time but didn't know anything about it except that it seemed to be extremely unconventional, especially for its time, including one page that simply ends in a scrawl. I always intended to read it and to be alert to comparisons with Finnegans Wake, not to mention possible direct influence on the latter. So, now I have an excuse to examine it more closely.

I think I have made some progress. The Rube Goldberg contraption has not indicated any passage of mice into or out of the kitchen. Of course, the contraption has never been tested, but I think it probably works. Yesterday, I found an enormous roach in the bathroom and, as I mentioned, I found a mouse in the bathtub a few months ago. I think that the mice and roaches are all getting in under the front door. As nearly as I can tell, mice like to hug the walls. Accordingly, when the mouse enters, it follows the wall and has a 50 percent chance of winding up in the bathroom before anywhere else. I think that this maze concept also explains the roach. After the varmint has finished exploring the bathrom, or if for some reason it doesn't go in and instead continues along the wall, it will next get a shot at the kitchen. The fact that the mouse I saw in the kitchen ran out of the kitchen instead of into a hole in the wall in the kitchen supports the idea that, if there is a hole in the wall in the kitchen, the mouse is unaware of it, and that is consistent with the hypothesis that it came from outside the apartment via the front door.

So, I'm now going to direct my attention to the front door, again by contrived mechanical means. I haven't given up on electronic solutions, but if I can define the problem more narrowly as a result of these other efforts, maybe it will have a solution I can afford.

Do you know how to check electronics scavenged from dumpters for bedbugs?

Good - the surgeon chopped it all out, and the patholgy tests were excellent. Was very stiff and sore for about 6 weeks but over the worst of it. Still cant play the violin, however......

This debate is becoming increasingly metaphysical and I must ponder my words carefully - it looks like needing more intellectual prowess than I possess, but will give it a go anyway.

I still hold with my suggestion for tracking the little bugger by using talcum powder -having lived in rat infested student hovels in my youth, I have become wise in the ways of rodents and thus my suggestion was based on practical experience.

And why do you have rugs in your kitchen anyway - this is most unhygenic as it would make it very difficult to scrub the floor. Perhaps the rodent has been attracted by the perfect food carrying environment on your floor?

I'm glad you're doing ok.

Probably, that will ultimately turn out to be a good idea. However, as with electronic solutions, I think I need more information to know what is actually the best place to put the talcum powder. For example, just because I have seen a mouse in the kitchen doesn't mean that the mouse lives in the kitchen. Similarly, just because I saw a mouse in the bathroom doesn't mean it lived in the bathroom.

I'm increasingly convinced that, in fact, I don't have mice in my apartment. Instead, I think that I have occasional visits by mice to my apartment and that then they leave under the front door by which they entered. After I've studied the front door some more, I'll have a more definite impression about that. For example, if it is a little roomier under the right side of the door than under the left, that would imply and explain a tendency for critters to enter by the right side of the door and to wind up preferentially in the bathroom and less so in the kitchen, and essentially never anywhere else.

Interesting. I have no rugs in my kitchen. That, however, doesn't mean the kitchen floor is hygienic. I, for one, would not want to eat off it. Nevertheless, the garbage disposal unit for the entire floor is only a few feet from my apartment and it is probably a whole lot more appealing to vermin than my kitchen.

Yes, I could put talcum powder down on the floor in my kitchen but I am already pretty convinced that the mice do not live in the kitchen. So the real tracks would have to be followed outside the kitchen, and there one finds plenty of rugs.

Seems like some good weather stripping application to the front door is in order.

I'd also check throughout the apartment for holes in the walls... like inside kitchen cabinets, etc.

I lived in a Cambridge apartment for three years... moved in and wife immediately screams and points at kitchen floor... something is scurrying across... my immediate response is hop up and descend on "object" which managed one squeal before I flattened it with both feet ;-)

I then searched the place and found numerous holes that I fitted with hardware cloth, then patched plaster and replaced chewed-up baseboards.

One week later my wife's parents sent her cat (our first Burmese) and that was the end of mouse problems.

...Jim Thompson

"Allan Adler" wrote

Oh, just wait.

Try some talc at the front door ... better yet a mouse trap along the baseboard on either side of the front door.

A common way rodents (and insects of a certain type that are often to be found living alongside the mice) get into the apartment is via the holes in the wall where the kitchen and bathroom sink pipes enter.

Stuffing steel wool around the pipes where they go through will stop both.

That sounds like a very sensible idea. However, first I'm going to rig up a mechanical contraption that will hopefully tell me whether in fact they are getting in that way.

Unfortunately, most of the likely places to look are inaccessible to me, either because it is way to difficult to move my own stuff out of the way or because the apartment was designed so that certain fixtures simply can't be moved and one can't see behind them.

At any rate, I might as well be optimistic. Before I found the first mouse, I had no evidence that there were any mice in the apartment. After I killed the first mouse, I had no evidence that there were any longer any mice in the apartment. After I saw the second mouse in the kitchen and watched it run out of the kitchen, I had more evidence for hypothesis (A) than for hypothesis (B), where: (A) Every mouse that has ever been in the kitchen has left. (B) There are mice in the kitchen. I have the entrance to the kitchen rigged so that a mouse should not be able to enter it from outside without my finding out about it and, based on it, no mice have passed through the kitchen door in weeks. That is where all the food is and if a mouse doesn't go into the kitchen, it doesn't have much reason to be in the apartment.

Mice are shrewd businessmice and they don't go where they don't have a reason to go.

I like cats but my lease doesn't allow me to have pets. Also, the cost of maintaining a cat would quickly exceed the $30 that I've set as a limit for solving this problem.

Schroedinger's mouse:

Both A&B are true at the same time.

One special feature of the front door, not shared by the doorway to the kitchen, is that the movements of the mouse are greatly restricted. I'm willing to believe that the mouse can squeeze under the door but I'm not willing to believe that it can do so without rubbing on the bottom of the door or rubbing on the floor. That suggests that there might be an electronic way to exploit this contact. For example, suppose I attach a conductor to the bottom of the door, such as a metal strip, and connect the conductor to a capacitor. The mouse is nice and furry and every time it passes under the door and brushes up against the conductor, maybe it will cause a little charge to be carried to the capacitor. If the mouse commutes to and from my apartment, maybe it will build up a big charge eventually and then, one day, when it goes under the door as usual, the capacitor will discharge and zap the mouse. Alternatively, by monitoring the charge built up on the capacitor, it might be possible to measure whether or how many times the mouse has passed under the door. That sounds like it could be done pretty cheaply.

If you agree, maybe you can suggest some details, since I'm not good at details like that.

One important detail is that no one else should get zapped except the mouse.

Even if the zap doesn't kill the mouse, maybe mice are smart enough to learn from the negative reinforcement of an electric shock not to come into my apartment.

No help on the bedbugs. Finnegan's Wake is widely considered to be the most inaccesible of all works of literature (in English, natch). That means it's way too hard to read for one with the limited attention span I possess, so I can't evaluate it.

Tristram Shandy, on the other hand, is a hoot!

Leonard