Rodents

I've been hearing scratch scratch scratch in the walls and in the ceiling for weeks now. Just once in a while, but enough to drive me crazy. Invaders! I know what it looks like inside the walls and ceiling since fixing up the place. Walls from the outside in, cementitious panels siding, old cedar clapboards, vertical studs with haphazard tar paper vapor barrier and dead air space, old 3/8 sheetrock, new 3/8 sheetrock, inside living area.

Ceiling from the inside out, or bottom up, 3/8 sheetrock, 3" foam panels, furring strips, poly vapor barrier sheeting, 1/2" foam panels; 2x8 rafters supporting flat plank roof, many layers of old asphalt roofing.

There's a crawlspace behind the garage area, under my living areas, with a dirt floor.

I took a 1/2" spade bit and punched holes in the walls where I hear the rodent scratching, in a few places; and injected household ammonia into the wall and ceiling cavities, to try and drive them out with the ammonia fumes. I don't think this is being very successful, and it's making a lot of spackle work for myself. This is my old shop, and has had rodent problems over the years. I can't find where they're getting in and don't know if it's mice or maybe chipmunks. From the garage area, I can get right up to the ceiling and look the length of the rafters back to the back of the building. The ceilings are high enough so I did that for visual inspection reasons. More so for roof leaks than rodents.
I just set a few regular victor mouse traps with peanut butter, and threw a couple dozen packet baits up in the rafters, and in the crawlspace. Gotta go to war here. Hate to use poison, but I'd rather smell death for a few days than let them run rampant.
I saw electronic repellers at HDepot, don't have much faith in them.
I heard of an old Greek recipe, 1 part flour, 1 part sugar, 1 part plaster of paris. Put in a bowl and put a bowl of water nearby. They eat the plaster, get thirsty and then the plaster hardens inside them.

I want to keep at this before it gets any colder.

I would not use poison if I were you. The rat crawls into the wall and dies then you get the lovely aroma of death for the next six months.

Sheet Rock bucket filled 1/2 way with water, a wooden ramp to the bucket, spread few sunflower seeds along the ramp, and spread sunflower seeds on the water so the floating seeds make the bucket look like it's full of seeds.

I saw a bucket similar to that. This one had a string threaded through a coffee can with the cover still on it and the string is tied off to the brim of the bucket. All you need is a hack saw kurf 1/2 deep or so 180 degrees apart. The mice walk up the ramp and jump onto the can. Once thier weight is at the top of the coffee can it starts to roll and down they go into the water. You can catch dozens at a time and it's easy to clean too.

Over in Naum they used to have a bucket about 2/3s full of water with apples floating in it. The rodents would jump down on the apples & roll under, unless they are champion log rollers they just get too tired & drown.

Southern Flying Squirrels

Check this discussion.

Tom

No more rodents.

Yeah, I hear ya about the poison, but I'm desperate. I hope it doesn't smell for six months, I was hoping a couple weeks while the carcass mummifies.

Here is a possibility. I had this problem myself. Could it be bats? You could poison and trap all you want but if its bats scratching around coming in and out of the attic you'll never stop them. Sonic gizmos are available that would drive mice and bats away. Just a thought....

Citranella Candles also keep bats and mice away. We have to lit one every night on the back deck, to keep the bats from using the deck roof as a place to eat their nightly meals. They poop all over the deck furniture as they hang from the beams

Not bats here, the outside perimeter up top is sealed. I think it's mice or chipmunks getting in. I'm really debating the electronic repeller route, a couple different ones at Home Depot. Don't know if they will work though. I know what you mean, I just painted a house that has plenty of bats up under the fascia boards, the guy's deck has what look like giant mouse turds every time I go over there.
Now I'm getting terrorized, every sound I hear seems like a varmint. My landlady should be paying for this but that aint gonna happen. Also saw a little can of rodent repellent that was $15- looks like it was a lot of pepper ingredients.

Those glue traps work well, it sure would help alot if you knew exactly what type of rodent you had.

samhill wrote:Those glue traps work well, it sure would help alot if you knew exactly what type of rodent you had.

Jeez, I forgot about those! Yes, we keep the glue pads in the utility room and the garage, all the time now. They work fanastic! The mouse just sticks to the pad, and you take the entir pad outside and throw it away with one or two mice stuck to it. The good thing about those pads is they catch spiders, centapedes, crickets, any creep-crawlers. I think this attracts the mice to the pads, then gets stuck while trying to eat the insects. Put a couple dozen of those pads around, and I bet you get a few mice every night. They are reallt cheap too. Walmart has them. No poison in them. Two thumbs up!

Update: I have got a problem here. Last year it was carpenter ants, now it's definitely field mice. Smart ones. Whoever told me not to use poison was right. My shop smells like dead animals now. I hope that will dissipate as the rotten little carcasses dry out. Gotta do it.
I kept hearing scratching in the walls, and ended up opening up the back of the roof. There is an old fascia board up there running the width of the back right under the roof. I tore most of it out, and you can see all the way into the shop from there. Nothing in there but the beams and the underside of the roof planks, and the first ceiling panels I put up. Freaking mice have highways up there to commute on!
I had most of it opened up and easy to get to from the back porch roof. They are getting in around the inside at the chimney, no way to tell where else, so many little holes in this old construction.
I put a 3" hole inside today near the chimney, right where I heard scratching. Put in a bait block and taped up the hole. Have a nice lunch. I'm making a lot of spackle work for myself!

Also went into the crawlspace to check out the chimney down there, put some foam into any likely entrance cracks, anything I can do.
Then I divvied up a whole box of napthalene mothballs up in the spaces under the roof. This is a limited engagement in this new WAR! I hesitate to use the nukes, (the glue traps). I did set a batallion of mouse traps in the shop, but they haven't gone for one of a dozen yet. Maybe these ones don't like peanut butter.

I know it's mice since I just went into the shop, went up a ladder to investigate more noise, and came face to face with the enemy! Two of them! They were hanging out into the shop to get fresh air!! They definitely don't like the mothball fumes.

I'd like to fumigate the whole place, I wonder what they have for that? I have seen sulfur candles before, but they will tarnish all metal surfaces in a dwelling! Fill the place with sulfur dioxide fumes! That would be M.utually A.ssured D.estruction lol.

does the word Boa or Python have any say in this fight???

rattler , diamond back, .......