tracking a rodent

[Allan Adler]

I saw a mouse in my apartment and decided I would rather study it than
kill it, at least for now.

What I'd like to do first is to install some kind of beam at mouse level
in the entrance to the kitchen, such that when the mouse crosses the beam
it causes some kind of electronic event, such as a signal that causes a
photograph to be taken or the time to be recorded or a robot activated
to chase the mouse.

At the moment, I'd be happy just to record the time.

I went to Radio Shack and asked them what they use to make the ding-dong
sound when someone walks into the store and they directed me to a certain
device costing about $30 and which is normally supposed to fit on the door
at human level. It could, of course, be lain flat on the floor in the
kitchen entrance, with its matching part at the other side of the doorway,
but the device is actually large enough for the mouse to walk on when it
goes into the kitchen, so that it never trips the beam. Besides, $30 seems
tway oo expensive. I was looking for something pretty cheap.

What should I use, what should I expect to pay for it and where can I get it?

After I figure out how to record the time, I'd be interested in finding a
way to weigh the mouse automatically without capturing it. Presumably,
some kind of transducer is required, but again I don't know what exactly
to use or what it costs or where to get it.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Jerry G.]

If you want to track something like that, you will have to spend some bucks.
The methods and devices used are very expensive.

On the other hand, it is not a healthy thing to have a rodent in your home.
He will certainly do some damage. They will chew in to things, and leave
facieses all over the place. The waste from these rodents can carry disease,
and pose a serious health hazard.

I realize that they look very cute. One thing for sure, is that if it feels
threatened or cornered by you, it can come out very quickly and start
biting, to defend itself. You may one day corner it without even realizing
it.

If your local health department found out about this, I am sure that they
would not be too pleased about it. Also, your neighbours would not be
appreciative of this either. These rodents can also be dangerous for
children and other small pets. Naturally, this excludes pets, such as, cats,
large lizards, foxes, racoons, skunks, and snakes.

I would suggest to get rid of it. If you don't want to kill it, I would
agree with that. It's life is supposed to be outside in a field or a forest,
and not in our homes. I would then suggest to find a way to trap it alive,
and release it somewhere in the wild. When I was young I knew an older
fellow that was doing that with wild animals, including rodents. This was
interesting, and also costly for him. He had to buy all the proper equipment
to do this type of trapping.

When I first read your question, the first thing that came to my mind was to
suggest to you to buy a cat! Or, to get at least a big lizard.

I am sure that there are a lot of people here who would agree with my view
about a wild rodent in a home.

--

Jerry G.
======

"Allan Adler" <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:y93is8noj3l.fsf@nestle.csail.mit.edu...

I saw a mouse in my apartment and decided I would rather study it than
kill it, at least for now.

What I'd like to do first is to install some kind of beam at mouse level
in the entrance to the kitchen, such that when the mouse crosses the beam
it causes some kind of electronic event, such as a signal that causes a
photograph to be taken or the time to be recorded or a robot activated
to chase the mouse.

At the moment, I'd be happy just to record the time.

I went to Radio Shack and asked them what they use to make the ding-dong
sound when someone walks into the store and they directed me to a certain
device costing about $30 and which is normally supposed to fit on the door
at human level. It could, of course, be lain flat on the floor in the
kitchen entrance, with its matching part at the other side of the doorway,
but the device is actually large enough for the mouse to walk on when it
goes into the kitchen, so that it never trips the beam. Besides, $30 seems
tway oo expensive. I was looking for something pretty cheap.

What should I use, what should I expect to pay for it and where can I get
it?

After I figure out how to record the time, I'd be interested in finding a
way to weigh the mouse automatically without capturing it. Presumably,
some kind of transducer is required, but again I don't know what exactly
to use or what it costs or where to get it.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions
and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near
Boston.

 

[CWatters]

First step would be to get yourself a webcam. Many of these cameras come
with motion triggered recording S/W!

 

[Gerard Bok]

On 02 Nov 2004 19:46:06 -0500, Allan Adler
<ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

I saw a mouse in my apartment and decided I would rather study it than
kill it, at least for now.

At the moment, I'd be happy just to record the time.

Do you have some camera to connect to your PC ?
There is a lot of software around that will start a recording as
soon as something changes in the frame.

It will not only record the time, but also the Mickey's picture

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

 

[corlioni1976]

"Gerard Bok" <bok118@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
news:4188bb54.4613977@News.Individual.NET...

On 02 Nov 2004 19:46:06 -0500, Allan Adler
ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

I saw a mouse in my apartment and decided I would rather study it than
kill it, at least for now.

At the moment, I'd be happy just to record the time.

Do you have some camera to connect to your PC ?
There is a lot of software around that will start a recording as
soon as something changes in the frame.

It will not only record the time, but also the Mickey's picture

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

Hello Gerard

Please can you provide a link for the software as I have a similar problem
with vermin(vandals) near my home and would like to catch them in the act.
Can't afford to get a security camera at the moment, so want to use my
webcam.

Thanks

corlioni1976

 

[Gerard Bok]

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 14:45:31 -0000, "corlioni1976"
<corlioni1976REMOVE@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

"Gerard Bok" <bok118@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
news:4188bb54.4613977@News.Individual.NET...
On 02 Nov 2004 19:46:06 -0500, Allan Adler
ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

I saw a mouse in my apartment and decided I would rather study it than
kill it, at least for now.

At the moment, I'd be happy just to record the time.

Do you have some camera to connect to your PC ?
There is a lot of software around that will start a recording as
soon as something changes in the frame.

Please can you provide a link for the software as I have a similar problem
with vermin(vandals) near my home and would like to catch them in the act.
Can't afford to get a security camera at the moment, so want to use my
webcam.

Well, actually I 'bought' a commercial product (at the quivalent
of 4 US$ . But there is freeware around:

http://www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win95/graphics/prym110c.zip
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win95/graphics/prym110c.zip
920518 bytes

prym110c.zip Puts webcam pictures on the WWW. Free

Pryme is a webcam program that among other things can can capture
pictures form your webcam, and upload them to your website using
FTP.

Features:
- Captures images from your webcam, and uploads them to your
homepage via FTP.
- Captures at regular intervals.
- Captures via motion-detection function.
- Keeps 10 most recent pictures available on your homepage.
- Adds captions to the captured pictures with weekday, time and
date.
- Minimizes to the taskbar and works in the background.
- Starts automatically with windows.
- Logs messages to a text file.
- Changes between setup profiles, allowing you to quickly change
between different setups.
- Browser to view the taken photographs, movies and the logfile.

Special requirements: None.

Freeware. Uploaded by the author.

Simon Hiort-Lorenzen
simon@hilo.dk
http://www.hilo.dk/pryme/
--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

 

[Allan Adler]

I agree with a lot of what Jerry says and would be glad to be rid of the
rodents. However, I think I can do a better job of it if I know more about
how they are getting into the apartment and what it is actually doing there.
I would also like to emphasize that these are mice, not rats. I'm not thinking
of keeping it as a pet in either case.

Moreover:

"Jerry G." <jerryg50@hotmail.com> writes:

I would suggest to get rid of it. If you don't want to kill it, I would
agree with that. It's life is supposed to be outside in a field or a forest,
and not in our homes.

When I first observed a mouse a few months ago, and killed it by
a method that occurred to me on the spur of the moment, I received
some glue traps and no other guidance from the building management.
I did some searching and learned that glue traps are considered a
particularly cruel way to kill mice, and read a web page that, like
Jerry, advised capturing the mouse and letting it go outside, on the
theory that it would not be able to find its way back to the building
and that it would be happier outside. Then I found another website that
acknowledged all the above, but pointed out that there are some mice that
really can't survive outdoors in the winter and that they look exactly the
same to the untrained eye as the mice that can survive outdoors. For the
indoor mice, they thought that glue traps were a better idea than putting
the mice outdoors, and that since one can't tell the difference without
really knowing something about mice, one should use the glue traps, period.

I'm also aware of some kind of poison one can put out that will induce
the mice to go somewhere outside the apartment to die. I'm considering
that also.

The best solution, it seems to me, is to find out how they are getting
into the apartment and then prevent them from doing it. That way, I don't
have to clean rotting mouse corpses out of the kitchen and disinfect the
area before eating breakfast.

There are already plenty of mice living in the walls. The management is
unconcerned about this and I have no rights in the matter. It is just that
once the mice get into my apartment, I have to deal with it. There are so
many mice in the walls that for a long time I thought my upstairs neighbors
had a dog that was always running around, until I finally met them and asked
them. What they do have is a bird, and that apparently tends to attract a lot
of mice, since the mice are smart enough to know that where there are pet
birds, there is a lot of birdseed on the floor.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Allan Adler]

bok118@zonnet.nl (Gerard Bok) writes:

On 02 Nov 2004 19:46:06 -0500, Allan Adler
ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

I saw a mouse in my apartment and decided I would rather study it than
kill it, at least for now. [snip]
At the moment, I'd be happy just to record the time.

Do you have some camera to connect to your PC ?
There is a lot of software around that will start a recording as
soon as something changes in the frame. It will not only record the time,
but also the Mickey's picture

I don't have a digital camera of any kind and I don't know anything about
them. Also, I'm running RedHat Linux on my PC. I went to sourceforge.net
and I see a lot of software for talking to webcams but they seem to assume
something about the chipsets of the webcams, which presupposes that I know
something about webcams, which I don't. Also, I don't know what the cameras
supported by the software costs.

Perhaps someone who knows something about the cameras can look at the
relevant webpage at sourceforge.

At any rate, a simple beam should be adequate just to get started and that
wouldn't require me to get bogged down with the interfacing problems with
Linux that I usually find so intractable. Moreover, I think it is probably
cheaper just to set up a beam. As I mentioned in my original posting,
I can get one from Radio Shack for about $30, even if the solution it offers
is flawed. So I don't want a solution that winds up costing more than that.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Nicholas O. Lindan]

"Allan Adler" <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote

I saw a mouse in my apartment and decided I would rather study it than
kill it, at least for now.

Ah, you will change your mind with time ...

Get 'Victor' traps, with the 'V' on them. Peanut butter for
bait. Chunky. Get a chunk wedged into the bait thingy. Set against
the baseboards and between appliances and the wall.

There is another brand called Defender (Enforcer ?).
Not worth mouse poop, of which you will soon have a lot of.


--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
Remove spaces etc. to reply: n o lindan at net com dot com

 

[Allan Adler]

Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> writes:

At any rate, a simple beam should be adequate just to get started and that
wouldn't require me to get bogged down with the interfacing problems with
Linux that I usually find so intractable. Moreover, I think it is probably
cheaper just to set up a beam. As I mentioned in my original posting,
I can get one from Radio Shack for about $30, even if the solution it offers
is flawed. So I don't want a solution that winds up costing more than that.

I finally remembered that there is some kind of pair of IR LED's, one that
emits and one that detects. They probably just cost a few dollars, even
from Radio Shack. I've never used them. For one thing, can I set them
a few feet from each other? Are they hard to align? Since the answer
is probably yes, are there simple tools to make it easier?
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Gerard Bok]

On 03 Nov 2004 21:50:25 -0500, Allan Adler
<ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> writes:

At any rate, a simple beam should be adequate just to get started and that
wouldn't require me to get bogged down with the interfacing problems with
Linux that I usually find so intractable. Moreover, I think it is probably
cheaper just to set up a beam. As I mentioned in my original posting,
I can get one from Radio Shack for about $30, even if the solution it offers
is flawed. So I don't want a solution that winds up costing more than that.

I finally remembered that there is some kind of pair of IR LED's, one that
emits and one that detects. They probably just cost a few dollars, even
from Radio Shack.

Yes. But you will probably spent much more than $30 before they
do anything close to what you want them to

I've never used them. For one thing, can I set them
a few feet from each other?

Yes. But if you expect them to see each other, you will need a
highly sophisticated pulsing system, an enclosure and IR-lenses.

Are they hard to align? Since the answer
is probably yes, are there simple tools to make it easier?

Indeed. As IR is very hard to 'see' it is not easy to setup an
optical system for IR. *)
And yes, it can be done simpler: buy them ready made

*) Hint: things get a lot easier if you use a common digital
camera. They tend to make IR-leds visible.

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

 

[Allan Adler]

Thanks to Gerald Bok for his helpful comments about IR LEDs and receivers.

One point I'm not clear on is the difficulty of aligning them.

For example: I might be wrong, but I think that a remote for a TV basically
uses IR and doesn't need to be aimed very accurately. Sometimes, if there
is a lot of stuff between the remote and the TV or VCR, I can simply bounce
the beam off a wall or the ceiling.

For another example, people who buy toy robots are sometimes in communication
with them via some kind of remote using IR transmitter and receiver. There is
a book on building robots with a Palm computer and it has some instructions
for how to add IR communication capabilities.

So, I find it hard to believe that it is really all that difficult.

Also, it occurs to me that I don't really need to use a beam. Instead,
there might be some kind of switch that will normally remain open but
which will close when the mouse steps on it. This might involve some
guesswork about the weight of the mouse. Also, to avoid having to
restrict the movements of the mouse, it would be best if there were
some kind of strip that could stretch across the doorway that would
serve as such a switch no matter where along its length the mouse
happens to tred.

Is such a thing available?

Just for example, I know that if my old EICO 460 oscilloscope is plugged
in incorrectly (it has an unpolarized plug, for some reason, but it really
does matter which way it is plugged in due to the catalytic capacitor on
the way in), then the scope isn't grounded properly and one manifestation
of this seems to be that when I get near the scope, my body acts as an
antenna and causes the display on the scope to change wildly [another
manifestation is that I get an electric shock when I touch the power
strip the scope is plugged into...]. So, maybe the mouse will also act
as an antenna and this effect can be picked up electronically along a strip,
preferably by a safer method.

Can I do this?
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Allan Adler]

"Terry" <tsanford@nf.sympatico.ca> writes:

However having disposed of three such 'varmints' as the colder fall weather
occurred, the only 'snap' I want to hear is a good old fashioned spring
trap. I've still got six such traps out and baited but thankfully no more
mice.

I've used the spring traps in the past and found that they have a tendency
to go off in my hand, sometimes causing injury. If I were to design a better
mouse trap, one innovation would be to make it possible to set the trap
by turning a knob instead of having to put one's fingers where the rat is
supposed to be.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Allan Adler]

bok118@zonnet.nl (Gerard Bok) writes:

Just try to build such a beast. It should trip on an 8 gram mouse
but not on draft...
[snip]
No. You're talking about a switch almost 3 ft wide that should
trip on just a few grams activating power. That's less than a
mild breath.

I do think it is a mouse but I doubt very much that it weighs only 8 grams.
I'm not talking about cute little white mice. I think the one I killed was
a lot heavier than that.

In my experience with domestic rodents, the difference between a mouse and
a rat is that the mouse is brown and fairly small, doesn't have the
characteristic rat tail and runs away when it sees you, while a rat
does have the tail, is grey and as big as a cat and walks around the
apartment as though it owns the place and is letting you stay there,
instead of eating you, because you leave food out for it.

I just heard that a friend of mine who is a cat lover and has lots of
cats had her home invaded by a rat. Since there was plenty of food to
go around and since the rat was as big as the cats, apparently the cats
made friends with the rat and there arose a state of peaceful coexistence
based on mutually assured destruction. She finally got rid of it by calling
an exterminator.

Anyway, I regret that I didn't weigh the mouse I killed before throwing out
the body, but I think 8 ounces is a better guess than 8 grams. This, at any
rate, emphasizes the need to weigh the mouse I'm presently dealing with.
Suppose I manage to narrow the access the mouse has to the kitchen via the
doorway so that it has to walk over a certain rectangular region. What are
my options for weighing the mouse, without capturing it, and automatically
recording the weight?

of this seems to be that when I get near the scope, my body acts as an
antenna and causes the display on the scope to change wildly

That's a smart way to detect something.
But it wouldn't detect Mikey
This operates by you being rather big. Big antenna, close to some
sensitive detector causes disturbance by capacitive coupling.

Mickey, on the other hand, only acts as a small antenna, hardly
disturbing anything (other than the cheese

Thanks for this explanation. Is there some convenient way to estimate
the relative strength of the signal? For example, I am bigger than the
mouse both in weight and in size. So I don't know whether it is the
fact that I represent a greater quantity of matter or the fact that
I take up more space. Also, much of the space I occupy is further
removed from the "detector", so the signal represented by that part
ought to be attenuated. Question: what in me actually serves as the
antenna? Is it the water that makes up most of my body?

Returning to the question of detecting me or the mouse in our roles as
antennae, doesn't the detection of the antenna depend to some extent on
the strength of the signal that is being transmitted from that antenna?
When I serve as an antenna for my EICO, I don't know where the signal
comes from but I think it is probably radio waves that are bouncing
around everywhere from radio and tv stations. Why couldn't I set up
my own signal at a different strength, greater than that background,
and let the mousebody antenna pick up and retransmit that instead?
If the original signal were strong enough, it might be retransmitted
with enough strength to be detected. This raises one question: can I
assume that the signal transmitted by the mouse is at the same frequency
as the original signal or is this a nonlinear mouse? If the transmitted
signal is different, detecting it detects the mouse.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Terry]

"Allan Adler" <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:y931xfa212c.fsf@nestle.csail.mit.edu...

I agree with a lot of what Jerry says and would be glad to be rid of the
rodents. However, I think I can do a better job of it if I know more about
how they are getting into the apartment and what it is actually doing
there.
I would also like to emphasize that these are mice, not rats. I'm not
thinking
of keeping it as a pet in either case.

Talking about taking pictures of a mouse or anything else makes one think of
that now old fashioned expression for photography, "Taking a snap".
Obviously based on the 'click' that a cameras make (or used to make!).
These days 'click' has an entirely different meaning pertaining to an
entirely different sort of mouse!
However having disposed of three such 'varmints' as the colder fall weather
occurred, the only 'snap' I want to hear is a good old fashioned spring
trap. I've still got six such traps out and baited but thankfully no more
mice.
Terry.
PS. There is always the possibility of feeding the cat some cheese and have
it sit near the mouse hole with 'baited' breath!

 

[Leonard Martin]

In article <y931xf54khm.fsf@nestle.csail.mit.edu>,
Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

ablight@alphalink.com.au (Andrew VK3BFA) writes:

Oh Goody - a silly correspondence commences........

I don't begrudge it to you. How have you been since your surgery for
bowel cancer in May?

Gadzooks, sir - must I explain in detail that which should be obvious?
1.Take up the rugs
2.Spread the talcum powder last thing at night so you DONT walk in it.
3.If worried about fumes from the talcum, buy a gas mask from your
local disposals store. very cheap.....wont break your research
budget.....

It is really impossible to take up the rugs. If I somehow managed to do so,
it would be impossible for ME to go into the kitchen. There is really
very little space, either in 2 dimensions or 3.

the mice are deluding you - they are walking in each others footprints
in order to maintain the illusion of "one"

I have no evidence to contradict the hypothesis that the mice are smarter
than I am. So, they might be pulling such a stunt. In favor of the hypothesis
that the mice are smarter is that they still haven't tripped the Rube
Goldberg apparatus I carefully set up in the entrance to the kitchen.
For want of a better name, and since "Adlertron" is already the name
of another of my hopeless creations, I'll call this contraption the RG002.

I don't actually know that the mice are entering the kitchen by the door.
All I know is that when I was in the kitchen the other day, I saw a mouse
run *out* the door to parts unknown. As far as I know, it has never returned.

An electronic solution would be to move your pc into the kitchen,
leave it connected to this newsgroup and wait for the mouse to engage
in metaphysical debate with you. By sheer force of intellect in a
subesequent correspondence, you will be able to persuade them to
leave.

Well, it might prefer to talk to you. In that case, I could leave it up
to you and the mouse to settle the matter and I could go back to thinking
about other projects.

In a sense, the ineffectual persecution of the mouse, which I described in
another posting, is a kind of dialogue in which the mouse explains its
capabilities and preferences. There is always the chance that it will
decide it hates taking my course on advanced concepts of kitchen ingress
and egress and drop out. A career as a professional whose duties often
involved teaching has made me uniquely qualified for this way of dealing
with mice, and arguably for little else.

I say that if the mouse wants to pursue a career infiltrating kitchens,
it can damn well prove it by doing the homework.

Unfortunately, I also have to solve the same problems to get in and out of
the kitchen, but at least I know the answers.

Youve figured out the door principle, right?

Uh, you mean that if I close the door, the mouse won't be able to get in?
I was surprised to learn that this principle, like many scientific principles
with fancy names, is not true. Raoul's law, for example, is only a law
for those mixtures that happen to obey it, and Ohm's law defines resistors
to be law abiding. According to the super, mice have no bones. I understand
that to mean that the bones are very flexible and they can squeeze under
doors, even if one would think they couldn't possibly. In particular, it
is quite possible that it simply waltzed in the front door, or perhaps I
should say it lindeyed under it. Apart from that, there is not enough room,
either inside the kitchen or outside it, for a door to open. Accordingly,
there is no door, merely a doorway. There are many people who would argue
that where there is a doorway, there must be a door, but it simply isn't true.

My apartment is like the commuter train in Bombay, India, where if you
pick up your foot for a moment, you might not find enough room to put
it down again.

No room for doors on the kitchen. It was all I could do to have one at
the entrance to the apartment.

I don't believe it is as difficult or expensive as people are saying to
come up with electronic solutions, so I'll keep thinking about that and
maybe try some other newsgroups.

No, if you have a lifelong interest in electronics and a shed full of
"things that will come in usefull one day" it would not be difficult
or expensive - besides, what is mere money and effort compared to
besting a cunning rodent?

Well, thanks, that is encouraging. I can just walk around my neighborhood
and quickly acquire free discarded electronic junk that might come in useful
one day. Except that I never got a clear answer to whether I have to worry
about the possibility that it might contain bedbugs, which I don't presently
have. It is bad enough that I have mice.

Tell me, what would I want to have in my shed for this purpose?

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

--
"Everything that rises must converge"
--Flannery O'Connor

 

[Allan Adler]

ablight@alphalink.com.au (Andrew VK3BFA) writes:

Oh Goody - a silly correspondence commences........

I don't begrudge it to you. How have you been since your surgery for
bowel cancer in May?

Gadzooks, sir - must I explain in detail that which should be obvious?
1.Take up the rugs
2.Spread the talcum powder last thing at night so you DONT walk in it.
3.If worried about fumes from the talcum, buy a gas mask from your
local disposals store. very cheap.....wont break your research
budget.....

It is really impossible to take up the rugs. If I somehow managed to do so,
it would be impossible for ME to go into the kitchen. There is really
very little space, either in 2 dimensions or 3.

the mice are deluding you - they are walking in each others footprints
in order to maintain the illusion of "one"

I have no evidence to contradict the hypothesis that the mice are smarter
than I am. So, they might be pulling such a stunt. In favor of the hypothesis
that the mice are smarter is that they still haven't tripped the Rube
Goldberg apparatus I carefully set up in the entrance to the kitchen.
For want of a better name, and since "Adlertron" is already the name
of another of my hopeless creations, I'll call this contraption the RG002.

I don't actually know that the mice are entering the kitchen by the door.
All I know is that when I was in the kitchen the other day, I saw a mouse
run *out* the door to parts unknown. As far as I know, it has never returned.

An electronic solution would be to move your pc into the kitchen,
leave it connected to this newsgroup and wait for the mouse to engage
in metaphysical debate with you. By sheer force of intellect in a
subesequent correspondence, you will be able to persuade them to
leave.

Well, it might prefer to talk to you. In that case, I could leave it up
to you and the mouse to settle the matter and I could go back to thinking
about other projects.

In a sense, the ineffectual persecution of the mouse, which I described in
another posting, is a kind of dialogue in which the mouse explains its
capabilities and preferences. There is always the chance that it will
decide it hates taking my course on advanced concepts of kitchen ingress
and egress and drop out. A career as a professional whose duties often
involved teaching has made me uniquely qualified for this way of dealing
with mice, and arguably for little else.

I say that if the mouse wants to pursue a career infiltrating kitchens,
it can damn well prove it by doing the homework.

Unfortunately, I also have to solve the same problems to get in and out of
the kitchen, but at least I know the answers.

Youve figured out the door principle, right?

Uh, you mean that if I close the door, the mouse won't be able to get in?
I was surprised to learn that this principle, like many scientific principles
with fancy names, is not true. Raoul's law, for example, is only a law
for those mixtures that happen to obey it, and Ohm's law defines resistors
to be law abiding. According to the super, mice have no bones. I understand
that to mean that the bones are very flexible and they can squeeze under
doors, even if one would think they couldn't possibly. In particular, it
is quite possible that it simply waltzed in the front door, or perhaps I
should say it lindeyed under it. Apart from that, there is not enough room,
either inside the kitchen or outside it, for a door to open. Accordingly,
there is no door, merely a doorway. There are many people who would argue
that where there is a doorway, there must be a door, but it simply isn't true.

My apartment is like the commuter train in Bombay, India, where if you
pick up your foot for a moment, you might not find enough room to put
it down again.

No room for doors on the kitchen. It was all I could do to have one at
the entrance to the apartment.

I don't believe it is as difficult or expensive as people are saying to
come up with electronic solutions, so I'll keep thinking about that and
maybe try some other newsgroups.

No, if you have a lifelong interest in electronics and a shed full of
"things that will come in usefull one day" it would not be difficult
or expensive - besides, what is mere money and effort compared to
besting a cunning rodent?

Well, thanks, that is encouraging. I can just walk around my neighborhood
and quickly acquire free discarded electronic junk that might come in useful
one day. Except that I never got a clear answer to whether I have to worry
about the possibility that it might contain bedbugs, which I don't presently
have. It is bad enough that I have mice.

Tell me, what would I want to have in my shed for this purpose?
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Allan Adler]

ablight@alphalink.com.au (Andrew VK3BFA) writes:

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......

I'm glad you're doing ok.

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.

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.

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?

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.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@zurich.csail.mit.edu>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.

 

[Jim Thompson]

On 17 Nov 2004 18:43:21 -0500, Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu>
wrote:

[snip]

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.
[snip]

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
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Nicholas O. Lindan]

"Allan Adler" <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote

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

Oh, just wait.

that then they leave under the front door by which they entered.

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.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
Remove spaces etc. to reply: n o lindan at net com dot com