Monday, November 14, 2011

The Geekend That Was, 11/13

Click now for JiffNotes

We have had a couple of unwanted visitors this week. We're pretty easy-going people, but when a guest shows up uninvited, then proceeds to run around defecating wherever he pleases (near my stash, even!), we draw the line.

We attempted to give them a graceful egress.
The basic premise, here, is that there is a little spring-loaded ramp that the critters run up to get to the bait (peanut butter! Better than cheese!). The ramp descends under the weight of the pest, allowing him access to the bait (PEANUT BUTTER!), then snaps back up, trapping him until he can be relocated.

It worked great! Michael dropped me off at home, then rushed to a meeting. I checked the trap. We had a check-in. Like the girly girl I occasionally am, I left it on the stairs for him to deal with when he got home.

The problem? When he got home, the mouse was gone.

That's right, folks, so close to Georgia Tech, the mice are clearly smarter. We thought it was a fluke; maybe I had jostled the trap so that the ramp was down? So we set it again. When I checked later, half the peanut butter was gone, there were little peanut butter mouse footprints, but no mouse. Next check: peanut butter gone. We moved the peanut butter farther in the trap, thinking he was able to balance on the ramp and get the bait. The next morning: no peanut butter, no mouse. Clearly, we had turned into the In 'n' Out of the mouse world.

I was ready to go all Red Queen on his tail ("OFF WITH HIS HEAD!"), but my tender-hearted spouse decided to...wait for it...
build a better mousetrap. (Please to ignore all the mess in the closet; focus on the white trash can and cardboard tube.) You can just make out the blob of PEANUT BUTTER at the end of the tube, yes?

You balance the cardboard tube oh-so-precariously on the edge of a ledge, and when the mouse reaches the end, he gets dumped into the trash can.
The magic is the quarter counter-weight.
Which has to be at least two feet tall, because those suckers can JUMP. Also, you're supposed to put a little water at the bottom because a wet mouse can't jump or climb as well.

So far we've caught four.
The Perp. Don't let the innocent face fool you.
Or possibly two twice.

JiffNotes
You really can build a better mouse trap.

13 comments:

Nic said...

Hilarious! I love the home made mouse trap :)
Personally I find a cat works best ;)

imnverted said...

Love your improved trap. Thankfully I havent had (or noticed) any four-footed pests (just the six - ants). The three cats we have may not kill mice but they would be played with.

Charity C. said...

Nice!

Erin (moviemuse) said...

This whole entire post just makes me laugh! Go, Michael!! Put that Georgia Tech degree to work. :-)

Daffycat said...

ROFLMAO This is soooo funny Heather! Awesome story!

Joysze said...

OMG!!!!!! I would've died!!!!!!!! I have to tell ya, I was reading and cringing... I hate rodents.

Oooh, Mal. I love Mal. :D

Kaisievic said...

Your DH is so clever - he should patent it. My advice is - get a cute little kitten - it will soon solve your mouse problem.

Hugs, Kaye xoxox

http://kittenstitching.blogspot.com

Delusional Knitter said...

Genius! We get mice because we're in the middle of the woods. We don't have it in us to kill them either, so we trap and let them out in the woods. The cats on the other hand do nasty, nasty things with the mice. One puts them in my bathtub ... I think to torture them first before the kill.

Karen said...

Very clever mouse trap! Hope you have them all....

Mouse said...

awwww ... love it .. reminds me of the time my little friends fell into my bin of dog food and ate sooo much the were round and couldn't walk when we let them go free .. took them down to the bottom of our very long garden and watched them for aged waddling ..lol love mouse xxxx

The Inspired Stitcher said...

OMG, that is the funniest thing I've read in a very long while! Awesome!

Jean in Georgia said...

I threatened to mark the mice we caught in the garage and released with a magic marker so I'd know if the same ones came back...

Melanie said...

Wow. Talk about building a better mouse trap. You're rocking it! That is pretty cool and that's something you don't get to say everyday when it comes to trapping mice. lol

After one died in my bathroom fan this summer though (and then started dropping, uhhh, bugs a week later because we couldn't find where the smell was coming from) I have no love for these little guys anymore though. They are cute in theory but once a maggot drops on my head INSIDE MY OWN HOUSE, it's all poison, all the time after that point. :(

Old Geek-outs