tracking a rodent

[Allan Adler]

Jim Thompson <thegreatone@example.com> writes:

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

 

[Nicholas O. Lindan]

Schroedinger's mouse:

(A) Every mouse that has ever been in the kitchen has left.
(B) There are mice in the kitchen.

Both A&B are true at the same time.

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

 

[Andrew VK3BFA]

Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote in message news:<y931xf54khm.fsf@nestle.csail.mit.edu>...

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?

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?

73 de VK3BFA Andrew

 

[Leonard Martin]

In article <y93y8h1g5ix.fsf@nestle.csail.mit.edu>,
Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

Leonard Martin <lmarti49NOSPAM@bellsouth.net> writes:

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.

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.

Possessor of my Own Collection of Mouse Turds,

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?

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

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

 

[Gerard Bok]

On 04 Nov 2004 22:26:39 -0500, Allan Adler
<ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

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.

Bouncing all over the place is one of the objects of a remote
control.
Your mouse detector requires a well defined beam as a remote
control type IR would never be interupted by a humble mouse

By the way: don't underestimate the complexity of a remote
control. Early PC's had to do with less computing power

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.

Just try to build such a beast. It should trip on an 8 gram mouse
but not on draft...

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?

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.

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

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

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

 

[Gerard Bok]

On 05 Nov 2004 12:37:10 -0500, Allan Adler
<ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote:

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.

If it looks like a cat, walks like a cat and eats like a cat, it
could well be a cat.

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.

Take may original advice and install a webcam. Then we can see if
it is a mouse, a cat or a rat

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?

At your stated budget of $30 ? Nil !

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?

Factors involved are: surface, signal strength, frequency and
amount of coupling.
The signal usually is 'mains' for the most part. But a nearby AM
station.....

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.

That would require a rather big transmitter. With the mouse
bouncing off just say 1E-6 of the signal.
I.e. it's there, but you need very expensive gear to detect it.

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?

Your mouse is linear while eating, non-lineair while running

Doppler causes the reflected signal to change proportional to
speed. I guess, you don't drive a car ? (Or you live in an area
without speed control camera's

If the transmitted
signal is different, detecting it detects the mouse.

Yes. You could even use ultrasound to detect the mouses presence.
Quite some cheap burglary detectors operate on this principle.
You would need to modify a ready build one though because
manufacturers take great care _not_ to trigger on mice

--
Kind regards,
Gerard Bok

 

[Andrew VK3BFA]

Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote in message news:<y938y9hgemo.fsf@nestle.csail.mit.edu>...

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?

This is a most entertaining thread- much more so than politics!. The
mouse is likely to die of old age before you work out a (free, /
minimal cost) detection device - besides, the habits of mice are well
known so there is little point in conducting reearch in this field.
Borrow a cat, set baits, buy a mousetrap - just get rid of it before
it does some harm (as has been well documented - they are a known
disease vector) If you want to know where its getting in, spread lines
of talcum powder (or flour) along the walls and see which are distured
- with any luck you will be able to track it back to its point of
entry. And there is no such thing as 1 mice - there will be heaps of
them, so get rid of them as fast as you can.
73 de VK3BFA Andrew

 

[Allan Adler]

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

The mouse is likely to die of old age before you work out a (free, /
minimal cost) detection device - besides, the habits of mice are well
known so there is little point in conducting reearch in this field.

It is gratifying to know that the mouse will not survive my experiments.

If you want to know where its getting in, spread lines
of talcum powder (or flour) along the walls and see which are distured
- with any luck you will be able to track it back to its point of
entry.

That might work in an empty room, but I live in a tiny apartment with very
little free space and a number of rugs. I simply can't spread talcum powder
around, particularly along the walls, and I wouldn't be able to see the
footprints if I did. Moreover, I'm not sure that my own walking wouldn't
kick up talcum powder dust which is probably not good for me to breathe.

And there is no such thing as 1 mice - there will be heaps of
them, so get rid of them as fast as you can.
73 de VK3BFA Andrew

I have no doubt that there are zillions of them in the walls. Nor do I doubt
that they will always be there, since everyone is the building is doing all
the right things in their own apartments and none of those things have any
effect on mice not actually in their apartments. I only have evidence of one
mouse actually entering my apartment and that mouse, or mice in case I'm
wrong about the actual number, is(are) the only one(s) I have any hope
of controlling.

If there isn't a cheap electronic way to figure out what is going on with
the mouse, I'll try some mechanical (read: Rube Goldberg) devices of my
own invention. They may not capture the mouse but they will present it
with ineffectual persecution in the form of problems of varying levels of
difficulty and inconvenience that it has to solve to get in and out of the
kitchen, but which don't actually prevent it from doing so if it really
wants to. I have one such contraption set up right now, the second in a
series of such. However, since it doesn't involve electronics, I won't
discuss it here.

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

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.
--
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.

 

[Andrew VK3BFA]

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

Allan Adler <ara@nestle.csail.mit.edu> wrote in message news:<y93mzxuonmq.fsf@nestle.csail.mit.edu>...

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

The mouse is likely to die of old age before you work out a (free, /
minimal cost) detection device - besides, the habits of mice are well
known so there is little point in conducting reearch in this field.

It is gratifying to know that the mouse will not survive my experiments.

Dying of old age is not the same as surviving an experiment. Except,
of course, if the mouse laughs so much he bursts a blood vessel in his
head, that is...

If you want to know where its getting in, spread lines
of talcum powder (or flour) along the walls and see which are distured
- with any luck you will be able to track it back to its point of
entry.

That might work in an empty room, but I live in a tiny apartment with very
little free space and a number of rugs. I simply can't spread talcum powder
around, particularly along the walls, and I wouldn't be able to see the
footprints if I did. Moreover, I'm not sure that my own walking wouldn't
kick up talcum powder dust which is probably not good for me to breathe.

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.....

And there is no such thing as 1 mice - there will be heaps of
them, so get rid of them as fast as you can.
73 de VK3BFA Andrew

I have no doubt that there are zillions of them in the walls. Nor do I doubt
that they will always be there, since everyone is the building is doing all
the right things in their own apartments and none of those things have any
effect on mice not actually in their apartments. I only have evidence of one
mouse actually entering my apartment and that mouse, or mice in case I'm
wrong about the actual number, is(are) the only one(s) I have any hope
of controlling.

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

If there isn't a cheap electronic way to figure out what is going on with
the mouse, I'll try some mechanical (read: Rube Goldberg) devices of my
own invention. They may not capture the mouse but they will present it
with ineffectual persecution in the form of problems of varying levels of
difficulty and inconvenience that it has to solve to get in and out of the
kitchen, but which don't actually prevent it from doing so if it really
wants to. I have one such contraption set up right now, the second in a
series of such. However, since it doesn't involve electronics, I won't
discuss it here.

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.

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?

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?

73 de VK3BFA

 

[Allan Adler]

Leonard Martin <lmarti49NOSPAM@bellsouth.net> writes:

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.

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.

Possessor of my Own Collection of Mouse Turds,

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?
--
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]

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

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.

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.
--
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.