We’ve had mice before in the detached garage. They made a heckuva mess, ate a mattress…
Our cats need exercise.
Well, so we need to clean up the mess out there and make it kitty-safe.
This turned up the fact the Prius’ battery is dead. Mmmm. Well. So we CAN’T leave the lights running. Manual says so. But now what?
Mmm. And there’s Jane’s car, which has been deader ‘n the proverbial mackerel since the trickle charger fell off the shelf last spring.
So we call AAA. Bless ’em, we figured how to jump a Prius. That was a good thing. On newer models, there’s a cap on the 12-volt battery that rules ’em all, and you take it off and follow the diagram in the manual.
Sucked it up, bigtime. Instant. We think it’s ok.
Then we attacked Jane’s car. Couldn’t find the key, finally did. Turns out the battery (bless you, Mike’s Towing, as honest guys who didn’t try to sell us a new one) is live. Just needs a charge. We got it going, got the thing running—and slammed the door on ‘lock’ with the key inside. Spoiled by the Prius, which beeps at you if you try to leave a key inside, and won’t lock the door.
We now know how to get into much more modern cars illicitly, but before we could quite complete the operation, Jane found the one other key, and we got in.
We believe we have both cars now running. Morning will tell.
This was one of those nights when it’s hard to remember it started a year ago with mice in a mattress.
We ordered pizza for supper.
Last year, I had a bad virus with some bacterial infection. The doc put me on an antiviral and an antibiotic. Side effect of one–I forget which–was, “May cause hallucinations.”
Someone else might have thought of psychedelic posters. But my dad had some serious surgery and the heavy meds that go with it. He was told he’d see black ants crawling around his recovery bed. So that’s the kind of hallucination I was expecting if I got the side effect.
I was working on my computer, and I saw a black mouse. Not one wired to my computer, though I saw that one, too, of course. It acted normally, but vanished when I got up to look more closely. I thought I heard scratching, maybe. Saw it again; got up; gone. Just in case, I improvised and baited a no-kill mouse trap. Nothing next morning. Bait not taken.
My doc and I agreed, this level of hallucination was no danger. We didn’t want to scratch a useful drug off the list.
And then a couple months ago, I found a mummified mouse.
“Snakes… Why did it have to be snakes?”
Anyway, My 2014 Forrester is now just a year old. I’m curious, when you add up the costs, has the Prius been more or less economical than the Forrester?
They cost the same: middling-grade Forester, middling grade Prius with two post-factory, dealer-installed enhancements, heated seats and moon roof.
Operating costs: half the gas. That’s the big change. Our 8000 mile big loop of a trip—at an average 3.75 a gallon would be 1200,00 gas cost, giving the Forester the benefit of the doubt at 25 mpg. Giving the Prius 45 mpg, which is pretty accurate, that’s 666.00. We traded when we had about 120,000 miles on the Forester, and it still had a lot of miles in it: we got a trade-in of about 8000.00. And we had 4800 gallons of gas during its lifetime at, say, 3.75, or 18,000.00 worth of gas. If we get the same 120,000 on the Prius, well within its design limits, we would spend about half that, or about 9000.00 in savings on gas, and probably get much the same trade-in.
So the math adds up to, yes, you save money on the Prius, but unless you are in need of a new car in that general price, so that purchase price is no difference, you’re not saving a huge amount. The Forester is a really, really good car that will serve well for at least 150,000 miles and more. We didn’t have mechanical issues with it. No repair bills, except a timing chain replacement that was just one of those things you do after you pass 100,000 miles.
Where you do save is if you’re driving a more expensive huge SUV like a Sequoia and go from 17 mpg to 45 and a somewhat less expensive car. Our actual in-town mpg is more like 50.
Lol—these mice have left us no doubt. They come in from the wild of the alley, want to winter-over in our garage, and eat and chew stuff, which can be (never has been) electrical wiring, including the cars, etc. We don’t want to poison them, because they could get out and get eaten by neighbor cats. But you should have seen the mattress mess. They burrowed deep inside it, and when the weather warmed, the stench was amazing. The mattress was very heavy. And we do have hanta virus issues even up here, so we really don’t want to be hospitable to another round of them, and a couple of weeks ago I watched one climb the brickwork beside my window looking for a way into the house attic…they’re shopping for winter, for sure.
Now the family whose cats used to visit our garden has moved. So we are intending to give our slightly pudgy kittehs an exercise space and let them handle the mouse issue.
I’ve heard they put an emetic in rodent poisons because uniquely they can’t vomit, but other animals, like humans, can, thus it’s protective from unwanted poisonings. But the emetic doesn’t “survive” to protect something eating the rodents. But I wonder about cats. They aren’t well known for having any interest in something already dead. Do you really think it would be dangerous to kittehs?
I worry a bit. I can’t think it would be good.
If you can get someone to spin you a dog/cat fur yarn, it will go a long way towards repelling rodents. It must be a complete circle, though.
Love it!
Hmmm… Leave both cars running and really seal the garage as a method of mouse control?
Have to be Jane’s car. The Prius goes into stand-by once it’s warmed up.
We thought of that when we had to run Jane’s car for an hour to recharge the battery. I held my breath when I ran in to shut the engine down. [some engines overheat if you aren’t careful!] But this is a 1988 Olds.
One summer -in the hottest period of the summer – I had a mouse die in the condensation pan for the car’s air conditioning. There was a smell, just an occasional whisper of an odor at first that rapidly grew to something that you could almost see. I trundled it over to my trusty mechanics and left it there. Of course it was parked outside for a couple of hours until they could get to it. At which point my mechanic decided that he had a long road test to do, and delegated the chore to his assistant.
Who still has not forgiven him.
Oh, ugh!
Sounds like your day went about like mine! I realized late last night my cell phone was moribund, so first thing this morning of course I wake up to it buzzing to tell me I missed a call. No info on who the call was from, that information is totally lost. So I figured since I was up anyway I might as well head on over to the cell phone place and have them give my phone an attitude adjustment. I wandered around lost for a few minutes before I found the right box and grabbed a pair of pants out of the “Undamaged and now clean” clothing finally returned by the cleaning people yesterday.
Sure enough, as I am waiting for the cell phone dude, I realized there was a big char mark on the front cuff. Most of the remainder of my day was spent inventorying the rest of my bathroom, then wandering around Fred Meyers replacing things. Somewhere in my adventures, I managed to dump an entire scoop of rice (bulk foods) through the bottomless bag and pick up a can that was so mangled I told them forget it when I unloaded the cart.
Positive thought for the day…. NEW PANTS thanks to insurance! And the smoke seems to have chased off the ants in the kitchen!
Weeble; what and when happened? Sounds awful! Whenever the good news involves insurance companies, its not really good news, just “good” in relative terms.
Well, the short version is a hot-water heater (electric) fire in my bathroom a couple weeks ago means I’m getting all the hoarder-wannabe piles of stuff in my house sorted, cleaned, and returned without the smoke smell, and my renters insurance is going to be paying for a lot of clothes, the washer and dryer, anything and everything that was above waste high in my bathroom, and (WORST OF ALL…) a bunch of books.
I’m currently rattling around in a huge place on the beach (5x the size of my old apartment in the barn) and my poor abused kitties are complaining its so big they need another food dish. Or 4. Full. Or they are just playing with acoustics, trying to figure out where the echo-kitty is hiding. Its hard to tell which!
Oh, my. Let us know titles on any books you lost, and maybe people will have a spare copy.
Will do, right now its a whole lot of hurry up and wait on the cleaning company. And wait on insurance. And wait on the property owners. OH, and the cleaning people are taking 3 days off to run up to Portland for 3 days of training. AAAAAAAnd more waiting.
Weeble?! I didn’t know you’d caught fire!
The Three Stooges are most effectively keeping down the rodent population. I periodically find a headless mouse body on the driveway. The neighbor kids also say they have found mouse corpses under the plumeria tree in the front yard; I don’t mind this, as the kids have already been asked to keep out of the tree, which has several brittle or rotten branches.
We also had ‘The Episode of the Vacuum Cleaner’, several cats ago. Our old cat, Snow, chased a mouse under the vacuum cleaner. DH picked it up so she could continue pursuit, but lo! No mouse. Flipped on the vacuum; whirrrrrrr-p-p-ppthhhhhl, as a skinned mouse body flew out of the beater brush. Eeeewww.
Chondrite, I once had a squirrel build a nest in the kitchen vent fan. Did you know when a blocked fan finally clears itself it can shoot baby squirrels about 15 ft. horizontally? The idiot rodent built the nest with most of the fibreglas pink insulation in that bay of the kitchen wall so I expect my kitchen will be somewhat warmer this winter (post renovation)
Could be worse. My mother had to run an errand in the nearest town. She said later one of her shoes felt a little strange when she put it on, but the trip had to be done that day. When she got home, she took the shoe off and found that there was an extremely dead mouse in it. Never did get the smell out of the shoe. (We don’t know if the cat left the mouse in the shoe, or if the mouse ran into the shoe and then died. The cat’s involvement is certain.)
Ewwww.
….Is not impressed until you tell me you know how to hot-wire a jump shuttle and get rid of a ship-wide Dinner infestation….
(If you, you know, feel an Alliance/Union or Compact Space story coming on, it would be quite welcome. ;D Just saying.)
I suspect squirrels were *on* my roof last night, but (I quite hope) not *in* my attic.
However, if said squirrels were to pay me rent and keep the attic clean, we might work a deal…. (Yeah, I wish….)
The cats are both up to no good as usual, but seem fine, aside from a recent ongoing disagreement over Mr. Non-Assertive’s right to whatever Mr. Super-Assertive thinks he can get; being mainly attention or favored napping spots. As for me, I insist he of the Non-Assertive persuasion is equally welcome, but have so far found no way to get Mr. Super-Assertive to quit being a brat and get Mr. Non-Assertive to stick up for his well-deserved place in the household.
The above makes me think of hani. If a hani male, younger or older, is not assertive, doesn’t want to fight, simply defends himself when of utmost necessity or gives way and goes elsewhere…this describes my Mr. Non-Assertive feline. He’s polite and mild-mannered (and non-assertive) by nature, a lover, not a fighter. While I much appreciate peace in our time, on the other hand, I could wish he’d get his fill of it and bop the little brat on his nose (or anywhere more fitting) and get his point across, he’s not to be messed with. But sigh, no such luck in several years. I’ve only twice seen him do that, and the lesson was mild, and Mr. Super-Assertive didn’t learn permanently.
I am quite fortunate not to have mice, etc. (though I’m hoping for no squirrels in my attic this winter).
Hmm, I need to revisit a possible Halloween short story, shelved, and see if I can resolve the plot difficulty to get the darned thing written. Still think it’s a bang-up story, though.
Hmmm… wonder how a kif might feel about substituting a squirrel for Dinner? I foresee a booming business in extermination companies run by kif!
not squirrel! Norway rat!
I could so see a bunch of kif eagerly doing that!
Huh, something kif and humans could agree upon? Now that’s something.
The kif equivalent of dim sum or hors d’oveurs! “You can’t eat just one…”
eat them before they eat the wiring!!!!