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There’s a moose loose aboot this hoose

lyledunn
Well, actually more than one!. In a half-hearted go at replacing and re-designing my en-suite I prepared the way by lifting the flooring and doing all the necessary demolition work. As you do at my age, you quickly loose interest, so the scene of devastation sat for a week before I summoned the get-go to finish things off. In between time it became obvious that we had suffered the intrusion of a horde of unwanted house guests. It soon became apparent that they had somehow got into the voids below the suspended floor and took it as invitation to join us in the rooms above when I lifted sections of said floor. Can’t say I blame them given the current weather but whilst I might seem flippant, my good lady is, to say the least, beyond distressed. 

So the floor is down again but that has trapped the wee buggers in our living spaces. I have spent much time setting traps and dispatching the victims one by one. Why am I telling you this? Well I built this house way back in 1990 and as a relatively young, go-ahead electrical contractor I installed cabling for just about every conceivable system from fire alarms to whole house music systems. Back then I never thought one jot about rodent intrusion. If I had to do it again there would be no voids unless totally unavoidable. There would be no hidden routes to get between floor levels or rooms yet this was something I deliberately did to facilitate future service installation. If  I had to do it again whether reasonable or not the designer would declare an external influence code of AL2!
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    AL2 - nice one!


    One of the things which bugs me about PIRs is that you don't lift the boards, and probably don't go crawling around the ceiling joists upstairs, so you never see the rodent damage. I wouldn't say that there is extensive damage to my daughter's home in the country, but you don't really want to find bare copper!


    We get mice in the leafy suburbs, but Little Nippers usually do the trick. Unfortunately squirrels are rather too big for them (or even rat-sized Nippers) but there was the time when one found its way down from the loft space into the house.


    Sometimes Mrs P can should very loud. ?
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    I was called to a semi regular customers house after a flat roof on a single story extension was removed, many rat carcasses, chewed cable, even in the cavity walls, bare copper but no tripping problems
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    An electrically related design question first.


    Are you going to have a bathroom cabinet with a mirror illuminated with LED lights operated by a movement sensor switch along with a demister pad behind the mirror, a built in shaver socket and Bluetooth speakers, so you can stream your favourite music from a mobile device whilst you bathe?


     Andy Betteridge.
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    Many cables have been gnawed by rodents in lofts but this is never seen, as the tons of thermal insulation covers the damage, and who moves that dusty stuff to fully inspect every inch of cable runs. But, the saving grace is that rarely do the conductors short together, and also, the likelihood of fire is greatly reduced as the thermal glass fibre insulation is non flammable, and would reduce oxygen supply to any potential fire. Obviously it is not good practice to cover cables that carry heavy loads in thermal insulation, such as shower, storage heater, immersion heater or cooker circuit cables, as this could cause heat damage to the cable's insulation. 523.9


    Z.
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    If it's of any help, I found that the plug-in "sonic" repellers surprisingly effective as a long term deterrent (after removing the initial infestation).

       - Andy.
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    If it's of any help, I found that the plug-in "sonic" repellers surprisingly effective as a long term deterrent (after removing the initial infestation).

       - Andy.





    They actually work? Mrs Jam bought a set last week and I confess that I derided them as snake oil pending an audio survey to see if they actually made any noise at all (and was then amused to see this video by John Ward, which rather cemented my suspicion).
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    A conversation with a customer:


    Me: I need to get the washing machine out.


    Customer: There might be some dead mice under it, my mother has five cats and they often bring mice into the house that are still alive, I’ll give you a hand to get the machine out.


    Me: There’s two dead mice under it.


    Customer: They are still alive.


    Me: They’re dead.


    Customer: They’re moving.


    Me: That’s the maggots inside them.


    Andy B.

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    I had a fox problem in my garden so brought a couple of sonic repel devices.  I was sceptical, as far as I was concerned they were silent.


    That is, until the grandchildren came visiting.  "What's that horrible noise in the garden Granddad?"  So we had to turn them off whenever they visited.


    Don't think the foxes could hear it though.


    David
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    davidwalker2:
    I had a fox problem in my garden so brought a couple of sonic repel devices.  I was sceptical, as far as I was concerned they were silent.


    That is, until the grandchildren came visiting.  "What's that horrible noise in the garden Granddad?"  So we had to turn them off whenever they visited.




    I wonder whether they would deter the neighbour's noisy children? ?

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    They actually work?



    I've reasonable circumstantial evidence that they do seem to work - from three of four places now - including my cellar which after occasional but regular visits from little gnawing creatures has been free from any evidence at all for well over 5 years now since the devices were fitted. I doubt they'd clear out an existing infestation, but they certainly seem effective in persuading any looking for a new home to try elsewhere. I'm sure there are some counerfeit ones out there too like everything else (and probably more tempting than most things since a human can't readily tell they're not working) but the real ones do seem to work (and I was too sceptical to start with). Take note of the instructions that say they're not immediately effective - the inquisitive little blighters can actually gather around them initially trying to work out what the new noise is - but after a few weeks the problem does seem to go away.


      - Andy.

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