Mouse Piss

[djkeev]

I have an out building with a 200 amp service to it.

Went in the other day and the light was dim and flickered.

What the heck?!?

There is an outlet..... 6 volts!

Pulled the breaker panel cover and found 8" of mouse nest in the bottom of the panel.

Cleaned it out and found that the mouse Piss had eaten away the aluminum neutral wire?

Never saw such a thing in my 60+ years!

Dave

 

[metaldad]

yep.
and dont breath in the dust, or touch that **** without gloves on

 

[wyliesdiesels]

yup chemicals in the urine caused the aluminum to corrode.

Better seal up that can.

How'd they get in there? Was there a large KO that was not plugged?

I would use no-alox on the new wire end...

 

[kwschumm]

Just got my car back from the dealer due to mice damage. They had to gut the interior and replace the heater core, evaporator, ventilation fan due to corrosion from mouse piss. Also new carpet and bleaching out of the entire interior while wearing a hazmat suit. $4k in damage, homeowners insurance covered it with $500 deductible.

 

[Junkman]

Mice eat the wiring on my Mercedes, and the insurance totaled the car rather than repair it. Once they get into the wiring, you have no idea how much damage that they can do. I have bait traps and I keep them filled.

From Wikipidia

The gestation period is about 19–21 days, and they give birth to a litter of 3–14 young (average six to eight). One female can have 5 to 10 litters per year, so the mouse population can increase very quickly.

 

[jp828108]

Glad I'm not the only one with mice issues. Had a few in the attached garage when I first moved in. Traps seemed to take care of them pretty quickly. Two years later found a bag of flower chewed open and mice inside my house. Pretty grossed out. Have been putting out traps. caught two adults and have found several babies roaming around. I will be investing in something to try to get them outside before they get in and probably some poison inside to hopefully take them out if they do get in from now on.

 

[bullnerd]

Death to all MICE!

This is the controller to my proto trak. They walked up the power cord and chewed through the fan guard. I flipped it on after not using for a while and could smell it! DAMN MICE!

Computer still works, CRT is shot.

It feels like I lost a friend while its down!

 

[kckndrgn]

I loathe mice! They get into darn near everything.

And as a warning for those that don't know, don't use bleach to clean up mouse piss!! Their piss has lots of ammonia in it, bleach plus ammonia = bad gas! Ask my wife, she about passed out in the gas cloud she made trying to clean up a pop-up trailer full of mouse piss and poop.

Sticky traps, spring traps, d'con & 'cab fresh' all in use in and around my house.

 

[tyme2par4]

I prefer a good cat.
I've had a cat all my life, with the exception of college. And wouldn't you know it, the only time I had a mouse problem was when I lived off campus at school.
The cat I have now has been leaving daily presents of mice and chipmunks for the past couple weeks.

 

[mm08822]

I would not poison them. I know of several people who thought they did a great thing to kill them quickly.
Their learning is that they die in places you don't know of/can't reach and they begin to rot and STINK for a very, very long time!

Traps are better - spring loaded or glue traps work nicely. (Someone had a nice 120vac mouse trap connected to romex leads posted on here. I would love to see that in action, but we all know that would not be safe for pets or people.)

 

[kbs2244]

My understanding is that, while they have been nesting in cars for years, they didn't start eating the wires until the wire co.s switched from oil based plastic to soybean based plastic.

I would not be afraid of poison.
They rare small and dry out pretty fast.
When I lived in a 100 year old house we poisoned them and I often found dried out bodies when I opened a wall.
We had never noticed any smell.

Now, squirrels are a different story.

 

[jp828108]

I would not poison them. I know of several people who thought they did a great thing to kill them quickly.
Their learning is that they die in places you don't know of/can't reach and they begin to rot and STINK for a very, very long time!

Traps are better - spring loaded or glue traps work nicely. (Someone had a nice 120vac mouse trap connected to romex leads posted on here. I would love to see that in action, but we all know that would not be safe for pets or people.)

The smell is why i was hesitant to poisoning them, but at this point after having them inside the house I'm ready to have them trapped or poisoned and hopefully reduce likelihood of having them running around the inside of my house.

 

[Junkman]

I store my collector cars for the winter off premises, and I put a couple of bottles of cloves into open cardboard containers, and put one in the engine compartment, one in the passenger compartment, and one in the rear of the car. Been doing this for a number of years now, and no problems with the mice. I don't know if the storage place also has a mouse control system in place, so my efforts might not be needed. At home, I am trying a new a multi pronged method, of various baits in the garage along with mouse traps (both mechanical and sticky), and I am also using bait stations at the outer perimeter of the home. Living in the woods, it is difficult to totally eliminate them completely, and today, I read that they rarely travel very far from their original nesting area, about 30' diameter, in search of food. Now, if there was an easy way to rid the area of chipmunks and squirrels.

 

[kckndrgn]

The smell is why i was hesitant to poisoning them, but at this point after having them inside the house I'm ready to have them trapped or poisoned and hopefully reduce likelihood of having them running around the inside of my house.

Mice are small and will dry out rather fast. I've used the poisons in my garage when the traps stopped working. Found a few skeletons and never noticed any smell.

 

[jp828108]

Mice are small and will dry out rather fast. I've used the poisons in my garage when the traps stopped working. Found a few skeletons and never noticed any smell.

Awesome. I hope to have similar results.

 

[mm08822]

Mice are small and will dry out rather fast. I've used the poisons in my garage when the traps stopped working. Found a few skeletons and never noticed any smell.

Garage, shed and barn are a little different than your house. Be prepared!

 

[MikeF2316]

My neighbour had mice in his garage, eating his grass seed, among other things. And crapping all over the place. My cat would go over and grab one every now and then and bring them to us to show off. We didn't have any, and my wife would try to rescue them and set them free. When my neighbour found out my wife was setting them free, he was pissed. After that the cat got to keep the mice...

10 years later, and now we've had a few in the house. My wife has no qualms about death sentences for those ones.

 

[matt151617]

Not only will they take up residence in electrical boxes, they also need to constantly chew on stuff to keep their teeth ground down. Copper wiring is perfect for this. Remember to check your insulation if it's not in conduit or armored any time you find evidence of mice.

 

[Dragfluid]

Forget D-con. The have that for snacks.
The stuff to get is TomCat. https://www.tomcatbrand.com/smg/gocat/mice-solutions/cat10720002
It's in refillable, lockable bait stations. Kids and pets can't get to it. The mouses have to go inside to eat it and then die. VERY effective!

I cracked up when I read the guy's post whose wife "rescued" the damn things.

 

[smalltown]

I hate mice too. That's one big reason that I decided to run EMT in the garage.
I've opened the garage door only find a chipmunk had run inside. So I imagine mice will do the same.

 

[Backpack Hunter]

The 5gal bucket trap works well.

Esse quam videri

 

[Dragfluid]

The 5gal bucket trap works well.

Esse quam videri

Yes, I've seen many testimonials about that one, and they appear to do the job.

Those would be good for the gal that wants to "rescue" them. She could have a whole bucket full and dump them out just a little ways from the house.