New England B.S. Thread

We run a bird seed trail across our retaining wall and down the walking stairs or the step down on one end to a 5 gallon bucket with about 3 gallons of water and the top of the water layered with seed. We also use snap traps. Totals tend to be around 15 mice and 10-20 chipmunk. Occasionally a dumb squirrel when they cant figure out how to get out

 

It's coolant that tastes sweet.

 

First year I had my house, I heard them up in the attic digging around. I set some traps and caught a mouse in every trap every night for a week. Ended up being around 30. After that, I'd catch maybe one every other day.

The next summer, I figured out most of them were getting in via the garage. There's some open attic access there that the last owner put wire mesh over to try to keep them out, but they could fit around the wire mesh. I replaced the mesh and put a layer of thicker metal wire fencing over it with holes too small for them to fit through. That took care of most of the problem. I keep four traps set all the time and get maybe one per month up there in the winter now--not sure where they're getting in now, but at least it's not a super highway like the garage was.

 

I feel like especially in the winter, if there's even the smallest window of opportunity for a mouse to find it's way inside, it's definitely going to find it. My parents' house had similar issues until they ended up going with quarterly visits from the exterminator.

 

Something like this
https://www.homedepot.com/pep/Xtrem...Vg4TICh2sYA3tEAQYAiABEgJJvPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

So far the only thing I’ve ever really canned was cucumbers. I did tomatoes but didn’t feel too confident so I refrigerated them promptly and ate them a week later . On my wish list

 

Yeah, something along those lines. The gauge is key; some of them just come with a weight but I don't like that design at all.
Were you canning whole tomatoes, or some sort of sauce/salsa?

 

Crushed with ascorbic acid

 

The idea about putting antifreeze (RV kind is recommend) in the mouse bucket is to Keep the water from freezing. If the bucket is setup correctly, they just drown.

 

I mean, that too.

The sweet smell also supposedly helps. Though, I'm sure if you use peanut butter or something similar then you wouldn't need the help.

 

So that would have been fine to water bath can, but pressure canning wouldn't hurt it.
If you're getting into canning, I'd recommend getting a reliable book on the subject, like the Ball canning guide or the USDA version of the same. That would probably answer 99% of the questions you'd run in to.

 

Ya, peanut butter on the rolling rod so when they are trying to get it, oops in the water you fell.

 

Welcome to my world--apparently nobody has done any rodent control around my rental house.

In the last 5 days, I have gotten:
Chipmunks: 13(8 with a rat trap, 2 with a mouse trap, 2 with a pellet gun, and 1 with a live trap finished off with a pellet gun)
Red Squirrels: 2 with a pellet gun
Mouse: 1 with a rat trap.

Using sunflower seeds sometimes combined with peanut butter for bait. I have some Tomcat bait spread around the woods and some in the garage just in case. There are still fuckloads of destructive chipmunks around, at least one more red squirrel, and I'm sure plenty of mice. I'm leaving the grey squirrels alone for now as they aren't bugging anything I own.

 

I use my debit only in person, mostly just to get cash at an ATM, and never anything easy to install a skimmer on (such as a fuel pump)

I use the round traps, bait them with a little dry cat food. Fuckers love that stuff and less bait thievery versus snappers. I don't get many anymore but before we remodeled the kitchen there was a gap between the sink cabinet/counter and wall they seemed to like.

@Pugga taste tested and approved, right?

 

I worry too much about my dog, but I suppose I can find a spot inside a crate that I use for wood storage

 

Just use water in the bucket, and peanut butter on the spinning/rolling plank across the bucket.

 

Use the round traps, they won't be big enough to hurt your dog.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/d-CON-No-View-No-Touch-Mouse-Trap-8-Pack-82043/100670260

I use dry cat food for the bait, bet you could do the same with dry dog food.

 

yeah and this way the dog gets a snack and water!! peanut butter with a side of Mickey.

yeah I wouldn’t use the antifreeze around my house, same reason with dog.

 

I thought they started adding bitter/foul flavoring to antifreeze?

 

I've got the AmEx Gold Rewards which unfortunately does have a fee. It's not as good as yours from a cash back standard, but it had some decent travel perks that would pay for its fee if you flew. I had a $100 per card JetBlue travel credit every year and then all the different AmEx offers. I know the add-ons usually paid the membership fee independent of points, which accrue at a semi-decent clip. I've had good luck any time I've had any issue with a purchase and their rental car coverage deal is quite good. I've got a couple of Chase no-fee cards with either 1.5% back (pretty average) or the revolving 5% categories. I never carry a balance, so it's just like free money in terms of cash back.

My budgeting is a combo of Excel and an old copy of Microsoft Money. I haven't really played with stocks yet. I've got the standard 401k / IRA / Roth, but I don't play with individual funds at this point. My high yield stuff is in the toilet, and CDs are even worse, so I've let all those lapse. I just opened an Ally account to play with their bucket thing which is brilliant since you don't have to run multiple spreadsheet pages to keep things straight.

As an aside, I probably missed it, but did anyone case in on Prime Day? The only thing I bought that I wasn't planning on buying was a pair of dash cams / SD cards / hardwire kits since the dash cam was on a decent discount. The Logitech G920 wheel was tempting at $320 including the shifter with tax, but then I'd need to build / buy a rig, get a seat and a separate TV.

 

I had a mouse that tried to take a swim in Toyota Pink antifreeze last summer while I was doing my coolant bypass tube