[HN Gopher] The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem
___________________________________________________________________
The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem
Author : axiomdata316
Score : 299 points
Date : 2021-12-12 04:50 UTC (18 hours ago)
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| notacoward wrote:
| This has been a problem in my suburban neighborhood the last
| couple of years. Each spring, there's a very sudden die-off among
| the local chipmunk population. I've found a couple of the bodies,
| showing classic signs of SGAR poisoning. Haven't particularly
| noticed an effect on the local raptor population, but I don't see
| all that many even in the best of times so it's hard to tell. One
| pet dog has died, another couple have become severely ill. The
| close timing and extent suggests that it's a careless pest-
| control contractor rather than dozens of homeowners acting
| independently, but no culprit has been identified yet.
|
| These chemicals are supposed to be used for _rats_ because many
| rats have developed resistance to other chemicals, but I very
| much doubt that rats are the problem around here. Never seen one,
| or signs of one. People are using these poisons to control _mice_
| , which most definitely are a problem, and it's literally
| overkill. Personally I burn through a handful of snap traps every
| year (PB and Nutella are my baits of choice). There are other
| effective techniques as well, several mentioned here. Like "last
| line of defense" antibiotics, SGARs should be a last resort for
| pests which can't be dealt with by other means.
| kumarsw wrote:
| One thing that the article didn't mention is that second
| generation rodenticides are actually not especially dangerous to
| pets assuming that the owners are aware of the symptoms (usually
| lethargy and discolored lips). For warfarin the LD50 for cats is
| actually quite high - quite surprising for an animal that is
| vulnerable to kidney damage - and the treatment is a series of
| vitamin K injections. So good news for pet owners with crazy
| neighbors.
|
| None of this is helpful for wild predators of course, and
| rodenticides are more likely to be used in rural areas where both
| rodents and their predators are present.
| foxhop wrote:
| I moonlight as a YouTuber showing how to GROW food on 1/3 acre.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ZIumjXukI
|
| The answer is snap traps not poison.
|
| Fight when the LAW of NATURE is violated, alarm systems all over
| the Conscious, Subconscious, and Unconscious UNIVERSE.
|
| Stop the CIRCULAR destruction of NATURE.
|
| The ONE verse of the UNIVERSE is a Trivium, Inputs > Process >
| Outputs
|
| Let's only put GOOD in the world.
| istinetz wrote:
| Wot
| collinvandyck76 wrote:
| timecube
| foxhop wrote:
| Poison kills the target and has a blast radius down the "food
| chain".
|
| Humans are terrible at 2nd order (or more) affects.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It also has a gray market problem.
|
| I ordered a webcam on Amazon, some time ago. Amazon had it listed
| as "official," and had a link to the manufacturer's store page at
| the top. It was a "Fulfilled by Amazon" product, which should
| have told me that it wasn't actually coming from the
| manufacturer, as the listing led me to believe.
|
| However, when I received the device, it was the Chinese version
| (gray market), with a fairly crude sticker on the box, claiming
| that it was the US version (it wasn't), even though all the
| packaging was Chinese. After I returned it for a refund, I
| attempted to write a review on the page, warning of the scam,
| complete with a photo of the sticker, and the review was rejected
| by Amazon. They completely ignored my reports. As far as I know,
| the item is still listed, with hundreds of positive reviews (I
| just checked -it is).
|
| It's fairly obvious that Amazon is directly and knowingly working
| with sketchy vendors, and actively suppressing attempts to expose
| these practices. I'm wondering if there's a bottom to this. I
| think it would take a fairly aggressive effort, by multiple
| governments, to stop it, and I suspect the will is not there.
| There's probably a _lot_ of money being made, and many people
| would be perfectly happy with the gray market device (until they
| try to upgrade it, or get it fixed).
|
| I did let the manufacturer know (when I ordered the real device,
| directly from them). I saw many complaints on the manufacturer's
| support site about the same exact issue (which is why gray
| markets are such a brand-damaging problem). I would not be
| surprised if the manufacturer was afraid to do anything about it,
| as Amazon is an 800lb gorilla.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| Amazon's inventory commingling means that if a product has both
| a legitimate and illegitimate seller, you can order "from" the
| former and get the latter's product.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Amazon used to have a webpage that clearly stated they
| commingle inventory from all sellers, so it has long been
| public information that when you buy something on Amazon.com,
| the seller you buy from does not matter.
| netrus wrote:
| What I never understand: Why do they not put a sticker with
| an unique ID on the items (or require the seller to do so,
| with occasional compliance checks)? That way they could match
| customer complaints to the company that delivered the item,
| even if it is not the seller the customer bought from.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume they do have a method of keeping track for their
| own purposes.
|
| I also assume the reason Amazon commingles is it makes
| their 2 day shipping promise cheaper or more possible to
| fulfill. If seller A's items are on the east coast, and
| seller B's items are on the west coast, and the items are
| identical, then it makes sense to send you the closest one.
|
| Obviously, the problem is items are not identical, and
| quality control is not something I am interested in doing
| as a customer of Amazon's.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It does matter.
|
| If you order real stuff, and get fake stuff, then it matters.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The act of choosing seller A vs seller B on Amazon does not
| matter for the purposes of trying to ensure the source of
| your item.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| Amazon skirts a lot of consumer protection laws for the sake of
| profit.
|
| Pill presses are regulated in Canada. [0]
|
| If you bring one into the country the government wants you to
| register that fact with them.
|
| Amazon.ca doesn't even try to hide the fact that they sell pill
| presses. [1]
|
| They're branded as "vitamin supplement devices" but they're
| definitely, obviously, pill presses.
|
| [0] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/meeting-
| lega...
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=pill+press&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
| thrower123 wrote:
| I never liked using DCON and other rat poisons because it just
| means they crawl off and die somewhere in the wall where they
| have their nest. And then they rot and stink there, where you
| can't get at them.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| If governments could put half the effort they put into chasing
| drugs into actually policing these substances...
| emodendroket wrote:
| It's amazing how quickly one's scruples about using pesticides
| disappear with a persistent pest problem, but yes, this does need
| to be controlled at the source.
| amatecha wrote:
| Happy to report I can't seem to find any products that contain
| either brodifacoum nor bromethalin on Amazon in Canada (not that
| I searched super-extensively). Sadly I could see a review on one
| product where someone specifically says "Don't order this from
| Amazon.ca! Order from Amazon.COM and pick it up at the border,
| because the chemical it uses is banned in Canada!" ... Really
| great advice there, buddy...
| oasisbob wrote:
| Interestingly, the AG of Washington state just settled with
| Amazon over this same kind of borderline and illegal sales:
|
| https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-agrees-t...
| skissane wrote:
| Brodifacoum? I don't buy that on Amazon, I buy it at my local
| supermarket. Not the US, Australia. I've never heard any
| controversy about availability of brodifacoum in Australia (maybe
| some environmental or animal welfare group has complained, but if
| so I haven't heard about it)
|
| Glue traps, now that's controversial. In the state of Victoria,
| illegal to use in residential settings (on animal welfare
| grounds), but still legal to use in some agricultural and
| industrial settings. I'm in New South Wales where residential use
| is legal, but you won't find them on sale except in rural supply
| stores
| ocschwar wrote:
| Environmentalism in the US started with a book, Silent Sprint,
| in 1962, which pointed out that when you poison pest species,
| you also poison the predators that prey on them, and risk
| shooting yourself in the foot that way.
|
| So pretty much the #1 line item in American environmental law
| was to restrict access to pesticides.
| hoppyhoppy2 wrote:
| Silent Spring*
| ocschwar wrote:
| Whoops.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" I buy it at my local supermarket. Not the US, Australia.
| I've never heard any controversy about availability of
| brodifacoum in Australia....)."_
|
| I can confirm that, just went to my armory where I stockpile my
| weapons and ammo for use in the _never ending war against four
| and six-legged house invaders_ and read a few packet labels.
|
| I live in a location that I unashamedly call Ratsville or
| Cockroach City depending on species that is causing the most
| mayhem at the time so it's always advisable one's armory is
| well stocked with pleanty of ammo. OK, what I found was two new
| 200g packets of pellet-type _Talon_ brand Rat and Mouse Killer,
| each pack consisting of four 50g sub-packs which are used still
| hold /contain the pellets when distributed. I also found two
| _Talon_ All Weather Wax Blocks (remains of a larger pack). Rats
| just love those wax blocks - much more so than the pellets
| (they 're my 88mm defenses. ;-)
|
| Both the blocks and pellets were purchased at the local
| supermarket and contain 0.05g/kg brodifacoum. These are just
| the domestic packages, bigger packages can be bought at
| hardware stores, on eBay etc. without effort.
|
| Note: both the full packaging and sub-packs are clearly labeled
| _Ready to Use Bait : For Use in & Around Buildings : Controls
| Species Resistant to Warfarin._
|
| In my opinion, the packaging and presentation is about a safe
| as you could make it for a domestic product.
|
| - It's clearly labeled in large white lettering 'POISON' under
| which it says 'KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN' - all on a
| bright red background.
|
| - Printed in big type on all packaging is the following:
| 'POISONS INFORMATION CENTRE : 131 126 : ALL HOURS : AUSTRALIA
| WIDE'.
|
| - The packaging has a proper comprehensive 'how to use/bating
| strategy'.
|
| - There's a well written section about not contaminating
| waterways, dams, drains, etc. Also says not to be used to
| control native species, etc. without wildlife authorities
| permission, etc.
|
| - A section about disposal of remaining product, it too is
| clear and well written.
|
| - Section on Safety Directions including details about the
| antidote Vitamin K1 (Phytomenadione).
|
| - Has a special section _' Note to physicians and
| veterinarians'_ about the blood-thinning nature of the product
| and the correct administration of the antidote (vit K1).
|
| - Packing advises in bold red type that the product contains _'
| Human taste deterrent BITREX, prevents accidental consumption
| by children'._
|
| _[My comment: BITREX is the chemical denatonium, a type of
| QUAT /quaternary ammonium compound, it's the most bitter
| substance known to human tase, some other animals cannot taste
| it - rats for instance. For the same reason it's also used for
| denaturing ethanol, ethylene glycol (antifreeze), etc.]_
|
| I'm not going to comment on whether brodifacoum is the most
| appropriate rodenticide available or not as that is not my
| expertise. However, I've had some training in chemistry and
| I've seen a lot of toxic substances over the years (and labeled
| as such), and I'd go so far as to say that this is the most
| responsible labeling I've ever seen on any poison for domestic
| use.
|
| Right, there are fuckwits out there who cannot be trusted with
| anything and they'd screw this product up too given half a
| chance. That said, if the simple and clear instructions are
| followed, it's likely reasonably safe to use.
|
| I contrast that with the common rodenticides of yesteryear some
| of which I personally recall - thallium and strychnine for
| instance.
|
| _(When I was about eight /nine years old I watched my lovely
| pet kelpie sheepdog Binky die of strychnine poisoning -
| poisoned by some damn lowlife for no good reason (even now, if
| I knew who it was I'd have to be restrained from attacking
| him/her).
|
| Watching my pet dog die in such utter agony was one of the most
| terrible moments of my life and it's still etched on my memory
| as if it were yesterday. Strychnine, which could easily bought
| at the local pharmacy when I was a kid, is one of the most
| diabolical poisons known: it not only kills with great potency
| but does so with a vengeance - with terrible pain and
| convulsions. It keeps its victim fully conscious until the
| bitter end and even then that's not enough, by nature/in small
| doses strychnine is a stimulant so all the victim's senses are
| heightened - while killing it concomitantly tortures its victim
| in the most excruciating way imaginable.
|
| By contrast, brodifacoum is noting like as merciless, and its
| vitamin K1 antidote is very effective. It's a great improvement
| over that 'evil' from the Strychnos nux-vomica plant.)_
| kortex wrote:
| I suppose it's better than strychnine in that there is a
| chance for antidote. But that presumes there is the
| time/knowledge to apply the antidote for the pet. And of
| course that won't help with wild animals or "utility pets"
| like barn cats.
|
| I'm not sure why the metal phosphide class isn't more popular
| in America. They hydrolyze in the stomach to produce toxic
| phosphine gas, which doesn't persist. Seems to be used in
| conjunction with SGARs but not as a first-line.
| Aeolun wrote:
| What's so bad about a glue trap that it weighs up against
| massive internal hemorrhaging over the course of 5 days?
| pvaldes wrote:
| The difference is that you see it. As somebody that had
| rescued a mouse from a glue trap once, I find them nasty.
| Having a totally restrained animal dying from hunger in your
| kitchen over the course of hours and days while looking at
| you terrified is a really unpleasant experience.
|
| You can kill it of course, and I'm not against killing an
| animal, but is a mess of glue and liquids and spring traps
| are more fair in that sense.
|
| [1] After a while I just couldn't keep typing without doing
| something about it. Some people laughed at me, and a bald and
| almost naked mouse was released some weeks later into a dry
| stone wall when fur started to grow again. It was a lot of
| work but I don't regret anything.
| posnet wrote:
| Because most people think poison is like in the movies/tv
| where the victim chokes for 30 seconds, and drops dead
| immediately with a little bit of white foam dribbling out of
| their mouth.
| lrem wrote:
| That's cyanide. That is also the most painful thing ever,
| but at least quick.
| ramphastidae wrote:
| Because instead it's death by starvation over 3 days. And
| often the rats will tear off their own limbs in an attempt to
| escape from the glue.
| berkes wrote:
| Yup. A neighbour here used to have glue-traps. I once found
| such a trap with two (!)stumps of mouse-legs still attached
| to it. Mouse gnawed off its own legs.
| bin_bash wrote:
| I'd rather die by internal hemorrhaging than being stuck to
| glue until I starve
| jessaustin wrote:
| That comparison doesn't make sense. Glue traps are not a
| risk to humans. Poison is a risk to humans, including that
| of internal hemorrhaging.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Some humans might be considering the experience of the
| intended target of the control device.
| jessaustin wrote:
| Leaving mammal traps unattended is cruel whether in the
| woods or in the home. If I check my traps every 8 hours
| or so, I'll be sure to find and kill any mice long before
| they start gnawing off limbs. Although, personally I just
| use the spring traps for mice, and leave the glue traps
| for crickets. Possibly this is cruel to the crickets...
| ars wrote:
| As someone who needed some rodenticide, what is actually needed
| is not restriction on these poisons, but rather very
| authoritative sites with _advice_ on the best stuff to get, that
| is actually safe and effective.
|
| It's surprisingly hard to research what poisons are actually good
| to use, you'll either gets sites shilling stuff that completely
| doesn't work, but is "eco friendly" (for example "Rat-X"), and
| sites that simply give you the "most effective", i.e. most
| poisonous (like the ones in this article).
|
| What's needed are sites explaining, for an average person, what's
| they _should_ be getting. People aren 't trying to kill birds,
| they just are getting really bad advice on what to buy.
|
| Bromethalin is a good choice, if you use a bait station (it has
| no antidote, so always use a bait station, never just tie the
| blocks somewhere).
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| most people absolutely do not read documentation, imo you
| should need to pass a license exam to use certain substances
| like bromethalin
| gameman144 wrote:
| Eh, I'm not sure I agree. I think the natural tendency for
| people is to think "My case is different, I need the strongest
| tool for this job!". People stock their medicine cabinets with
| Extra Strength Tylenol instead of regular, or buy anti-
| bacterial soap instead of normal soap, because it's easier to
| go straight for the big guns.
|
| Even in these small cases the information is _tremendously_
| easy to find and people don 't look for it and/or care about
| it. The consequences of the wrong Tylenol or anti-bacterial
| soap are small comparatively, but when the consequences of bad
| choices get in the way of ecological conservation _for no good
| reason_ , it seems like that's prime territory for regulation.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| No, they aren't thinking "my case is different," they are
| expecting the market to be flooded with ineffective products
| marketed as "safe alternatives." Because it is. They are
| grasping at any piece of information they can find to fight
| the overwhelming tidal wave of ineffective non-solutions.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Get the old wood-and-wire snap traps. The design is centuries
| old, and they work. They make them rat-size, too.
| acomjean wrote:
| I've used the wooden and wire, and they do work. Setting the
| small ones I always get a little nervous about my fingers. I
| saw the rat size ones in the store and yikes..
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There's a plastic snap-trap that's easier to set and less
| risk to your fingers.
|
| They're particularly useful for someone who's older and has
| muscular or nerve disabilities.
|
| Both the wood and plastic traps are effective in my
| experience.
| forgotmyoldname wrote:
| You'd be surprised how many people don't care what's
| recommended for their needs, because they just want the
| strongest stuff imaginable. Particularly when they're pissed
| off at pests.
|
| There's a good number of people who'd happily buy flying murder
| robots to blow rats up with missiles if they were readily
| available and affordable.
| 14 wrote:
| I can't stand that we live in world where one day in the need it
| questions things like but apocalypse and the disappearance of
| them, then the next I'm reading rat poisons easily bought to kill
| rodents (not confusing bugs and rodents but hate that we kill
| things in general). My city sprays lots of herbicides every year
| as well which is debatable if it is harmful to insects. Why are
| people so against bugs? I've let spiders live in my room for a
| long time. Rodents can be kept out of your house by securing your
| perimeter and making sure their are no holes in your vents or
| cracks in the wall. Why people are allowed to buy such poisons
| with no oversight how to properly use them is a failure in my
| mind. Can we please stop the attack on unwanted plants and
| animals through the use of toxic chemicals please.
| strenholme wrote:
| Well, in my case, I have a cat. Nice to have around, and I have
| never had a rat problem with her in my life.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Is there really any benefit to poison? There're variety of
| effective traps. At least with traps you know where the dead (or
| live) rat is and it's not going to cause problems like dying
| behind a wall or something.
| notacoward wrote:
| Poison is convenient. For one thing, it's effective even
| without any effort or skill. Setting an old-fashioned trap is
| not hard, but it does take a bit of practice to get the
| sensitivity just right. I've known lots of people who set
| theirs so that they wouldn't trigger for anything smaller than
| a capybara, watched their bait get stolen a couple of times,
| and then gave up. Also, the very same feature of knowing
| whether you caught something also means you have to see it and
| dispose of it. I have no problem with any of this, but many
| people do. Usually they only find out about poison's down sides
| when it's too late.
|
| BTW some of the older poisons advertised that victims would
| actively seek to get outside before they died, which would
| avoid the "died in the wall" problem. Such claims might or
| might not have been true, but people continue to believe that
| for all poisons.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I wonder if this is what killed our beloved cat Eli. He was just
| dead one day laying in the doghouse, no apparent trauma of any
| kind. I can see the idiot show hog owning neighbor using a lot of
| baits like this.
| berkes wrote:
| A neighbor-kid found our cat, Ziggy, in the grass early in the
| morning. Ziggy was in a terrible state. Soaked (it was
| raining), shaking, full on hypothermia, foam on his mouth and
| terrified - apparently he was conscious of his surroundings
| still, but could not move.
|
| Brought him to the emergency vet. Made it. But barely. Vet
| thought he wasn't, but we asked to try anyway. They give the
| cat loads of greasy puree. Rat and mouse-poison binds to that.
| Cost us an arm and a leg; something I thought I'd never do for
| an animal. But stress and full on "sunken cost fallacy - we
| already drove all the way, might as wel...". He made it, which
| makes it worth it in the end though.
|
| Emailed all neighbors not to do this. We live in a nature-
| reserve, so with all the hawks, storks, buzzards, badgers and
| minks, it really is unacceptable. Two neighbors confined that
| they got some poison illegally (this is The Netherlands where
| no such poisons may be sold to consumers) on the internet,
| unaware of the risks, and harm to animals.
|
| Me: "you were unaware of the harm that a poison for animals,
| does to animals?" I'm a beekeeper, the same happens there too
| "Huh? Never realized that insecticide is bad for bees, thought
| it only worked on wasps and flies. ...".
| elurg wrote:
| Anyone surprised that the title is not a metaphor?
|
| The article is about the literal sale of substances which are
| harmful when ingested by rodents.
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| Harmful when ingested directly or via carrion by rodents, along
| with basically anything else, including dogs, cat, birds, and
| people.
| johnorourke wrote:
| Yes! I thought it was going to compare the fight against
| <insert internet problem> with the Hanoi rat problem of 1902,
| where giving people the wrong incentive exacerbated the
| problem.
| nefitty wrote:
| That raises an interesting question. What ARE the Hanoi Rat
| problems of the internet?
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Calling out "ists" for karma and kudos. If there are no
| "ists" around, sockpuppet one or just claim you saw an
| "ist" somewhere else and put them in their place. Karma and
| kudos will follow.
| just-tom wrote:
| Yeah I was like, hmmm who are the rats in this? What is the
| poison? Maybe it's me?? I have to change my ways!
| progre wrote:
| Yep, I totally thought that it would be about some law that
| ruins the internet for everyone while at the same time does
| nothing to stop bad actors. Like the EU cookie warning mandate.
| justsaying9 wrote:
| God I hate that bullshit. They have accomplished what,
| exactly? Oh, a big annoying banner that I now have to click
| through. So helpful. A testament to the stupidity of mankind.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > They have accomplished what, exactly?
|
| They made tracking annoying and evident.
| justsaying9 wrote:
| Which, again, accomplishes what, exactly?
|
| "What? This site uses cookies? I am shocked--shocked I
| say!--to learn cookies are being used on this web site! I
| had NO IDEA that was going on! Why, it's not like they
| have been doing that for 25+ years, or anything!"
|
| Is this going to stop companies from tracking people? Of
| course not. It does absolutely nothing to stop any of
| that. All it does is create yet another useless, annoying
| fucking popup I have to click through. Instead of being
| silently tracked, now I'm tracked, plus annoyed, and
| being FORCED to agree with it. Even though I don't even
| live in the God damned EU and neither do many of the web
| sites I access.
|
| Like I said--a perfect example of how brain dead retarded
| humanity is. A failed species. Bring on the giant
| asteroid, any day now GOD.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| They have given you a choice and taken away some comfort.
| It's literally what libertarians preach.
| justsaying9 wrote:
| Tell me more about this 'libertarianism.' Teach me, O
| wise one.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Awareness of a problem is the first stage in addressing it.
|
| Tracking _became_ as ubiquitous as it is silently for most
| people. As you 're demonstrating, it's no longer silent.
| justsaying9 wrote:
| Address the problem? LOL! Yes, we are totally going to
| stop the tracking problem dead in its tracks by
| bombarding the poor serf with annoying popups. A
| foolproof, masterful plan. Pure genius.
|
| Next thing you know, the executives of Google, Facebook,
| Microsoft, The Government, the Church, YCombinator, and
| every other corporation on the planet will be arrested en
| masse, charged with egregious violations of civil rights,
| convicted, then publically executed.
|
| If only the common serf had understood sooner that their
| every move and all details of their lives were being
| monitored, tracked, and recorded for sinister purposes,
| and their data, dignity, and rights exfiltrated by
| ubiquitous malware installed by Big Brother on every
| single digital device. Their minds controlled and
| manipulated by an endless barrage of disinformation;
| their bodies, souls, and lives totally owned by their
| betters. If only they had known they were born into
| chattel slavery.
|
| But now the dawning of truth and justice is at hand!
| Finally, at long last, the masses are going to rise up in
| revolt against digital slavery by faceless
| corporate/government/religious demons! I'm sure of it!
| And all it took was ubiquitous, annoying popups, to
| finally awaken the power of the masses against their
| corporate/government/religious overlords. The era of
| total freedom from serfdom is at hand! Arise, my people,
| and FIGHT! Launch all zig! For great justice!
|
| Meanwhile, be sure to wear that scrap of fabric across
| your face, citizen, or the boogie-virus'll get ya! lol.
|
| Like I said, humans are extraordinarily stupid creatures.
| A worthless, failed, unrepentently evil species. Bring on
| the asteroid. ANY DAY NOW.
| boppo1 wrote:
| my parents have mice in their attic & have pretty much just been
| letting the problem go after 8 snap traps only got one. They
| don't leave the attic & are only there in winter. What's the harm
| of ignoring them?
| astura wrote:
| They can cause structural damage and their urine and feces are
| a human health hazard.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Chewed wires and ruined insulation
| h2odragon wrote:
| An empty, upright, open 5 gallon bucket is an effective mouse
| trap. Put something beside it so they can get up to the rim, and
| make sure the inside's empty and smooth so they can't get out.
| After the first one falls in and dies of thirst, others will
| follow to investigate the smell. If you want to bait it initially
| a bit of peanut butter near the rim for smell should be enough.
|
| We make a habit of leaving water and garden buckets upside down,
| outside, so we won't discover dead mice in them when we use them.
| [deleted]
| Syonyk wrote:
| Ew. Not surprised you can buy the stuff that professionals shy
| away from for being too damned toxic, to your door, overnight
| delivery. Plus good reviews, hard to leave a bad review for it
| when you're bleeding out in the ER.
|
| I don't use poisons for pest control. We have too many owls,
| hawks, and the occasional eagle overhead. I'll kill stuff
| mechanically (damned pocket gophers...) and toss the carcass out
| where something will find it and eat it, but I won't poison them.
| The best mouse trap is actually a slightly erratic supply of cat
| food.
| hamstergene wrote:
| Good reviews also barely mean anything these days. The worst
| item I have ever bought online, which damaged itself on opening
| for 100% of buyers, had ~4.1 rating. At this point, it is fair
| to say getting less than 4 stars means the seller was too
| poor/naive to hire "online promotion" services or whatever they
| are called, rather than anything else.
| zrm wrote:
| Similar to eBay seller ratings where 99.9% positive feedback
| means you might get your item, whereas 95% positive feedback
| implies the seller is stealing the goods from the factory
| that counterfeits them and whether you receive anything
| depends mainly on how the shipping carrier handles a package
| that catches fire in transit.
|
| Less than 80% positive feedback has never been observed but
| would presumably involve the seller coming to your house to
| murder you and steal your identity and then using your
| account to leave negative feedback for themselves.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| This has the same energy as that "you wouldn't steal a car"
| ad in IT Crowd.
|
| But it's not far from the truth, and unless 10 news
| websites report on it online platforms won't even bother
| with an empty statement. Amazon for example lets vendors
| transfer good reviews to any other product by just
| replacing the product entry (name, description, price).
| Sure you then have reviews for coffee cups under some
| solder wire, but it fools enough users. And if the reviews
| are too negative you can just remove the product offer and
| immediately create it again.
| nefitty wrote:
| I think it's also review shyness. My wife yelled at me
| once (like real, oh shit I'm in trouble, yell) for
| leaving a 1 star review for an Uber driver who sped the
| whole way and ran a red light.
| ziml77 wrote:
| What was her concern about leaving a bad review?
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I'm this case a bad review could threaten someone's
| livelihood and ability to feed/house themselves and their
| dependents. I feel a lot less bad leaving a bad review on
| an object on Amazon, but a bad review of a person who I
| know might very well lose everything because of even
| small changes in rating makes me nervous to rate them
| anything worse than a perfect score.
| [deleted]
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| If you genuinely thought they were driving dangerously,
| then isn't it better to report it than to not? It's not
| really your fault that Uber's internal culture is so
| toxic. On the other hand, your choice to use Uber
| supports them. On the third hand, traditional taxi
| services often deliver exceptionally worse service, so
| what is someone to do?
|
| Regarding the driver's livelihood, it seems to me like
| you should not worry so much about the choice of clicking
| a button in an app on your phone. For one thing, the
| driver probably isn't actually on the edge of ruin, and
| if they are it was due to a sequence of events that
| started long before you got into their car. If that's not
| the case, and Uber's in-app rating system is indeed a
| life destroyer, then at the very least maybe you should
| uninstall that app immediately, give the app itself a 1
| star rating, and not associate yourself with Uber in the
| future, even at the cost of your own personal
| inconvenience? Would you ride in a taxi cab that included
| a loaded revolver in the back seat next to a sign that
| read, "satisfaction guaranteed, no questions asked"?
| justsaying9 wrote:
| Probably because the driver didn't actually do anything
| unsafe, and she actually appreciated him hurrying to get
| there instead of driving like a scared grandmother, like
| her chode husband does.
| MereInterest wrote:
| That's caused by excessive metric tracking on the part of
| companies, and passing the blame down to individual
| employees. When a 5-star rating is the default and
| anything else is a push for the person to be fired, of
| course people won't leave negative reviews, that's going
| to prevent people from leaving accurate reviews.
|
| If I could trust reviews to be used in good faith (e.g.
| by paying employees a living wage and not implicitly
| requiring dangerous behavior to meet quotas), then I
| could leave more accurate reviews.
| Aunche wrote:
| If they were driving recklessly, then they should be
| fired though. Uber prices are pretty much completely
| dictated by supply and demand. By taking a higher volume
| of passengers at the cost of safety, you're increasing
| the supply of trips and pressuring safer drivers to match
| your volume. Firing the reckless drivers creates a
| landscape where safer drivers can fairly compete.
| kingcharles wrote:
| > Amazon for example lets vendors transfer good reviews
| to any other product by just replacing the product entry
| (name, description, price).
|
| Huh. I wondered why often the reviews were for clearly a
| different product than the one in the description.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I bought a small wastebasket years ago that was the
| perfect shape, size, material, and finish. Lots of people
| agreed and it had really high ratings. Recently I wanted
| to find the official size to buy tighter fitting bags,
| maybe buy another wastebasket, only to find the listing
| now shows a meat slicer from a different company, with
| all the obvious trash can reviews still in place.
| kstenerud wrote:
| I spit my tea all over at that last sentence.
| 7952 wrote:
| Redordering reviews by date helps a lot.
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| I have a terrible pocket gopher problem. They absolutely have
| to be dealt with when they come out of hibernation this year.
| What's you're favorite trap for them?
| Syonyk wrote:
| I've got some long black traps with a "flag" on them that
| pops when triggered, and those seem to work well enough. A
| chunk of rebar to poke around and find the tunnel, a bit of
| hand digging, and I can start pulling 'em out in a hurry.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| After years of trouble, my wife finally found success with a
| GopherHawk.
| zionic wrote:
| Sounds like a great way to give your cat toxoplasmosis, which
| will eventually infect you via feces spread if they're
| indoor/outdoor.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Amazon should pay for cleanup, at least then there is some self
| regulating pressure.
| Spivak wrote:
| I don't really think this is Amazon's fault since they sell a
| huge amount of products aimed at professionals. For SMBs it's
| not common for Amazon to be their main supplier.
|
| Exterminators are a licensed profession in most states and
| rather than leveraging that system to control poison
| distribution they said "eh just don't sell it at Lowes" and
| hoped people wouldn't find out what stores you can actually buy
| it at.
|
| I think it should be cleaned up but punitive damages for online
| retailers seems a stretch since it seems arguable they were
| following the law.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| What's surprising is why people would buy this over the more
| obvious search result 'Rat Poison'. Perhaps Amazon has already
| adjusted the search results but the top results for 'rat poison'
| were Cholecalciferol and Bromethalin based products.
|
| Does Brodifacoum work the best? What's driving consumers to
| search for a specific type of poison.
|
| > Things haven't quite worked out as the EPA envisioned. When I
| first started browsing Amazon, neither the cost nor the size
| seemed particularly egregious to me. A single bucket--similar in
| size to a container of birdseed--seemed sufficient for my small
| yard.
|
| Is putting poison over an entire yard a common/reasonable usage?
| I've really only needed to put poison out in a few problematic
| locations i.e where rodents have been seen like garages,
| basements, food pantry, etc. Covering an entire area like you
| would with grass seed or rock salt seems almost deliberately
| malicious.
| NavinF wrote:
| Never had to deal with a rat problem, but lemme put myself in
| the shoes of someone who tried using cheap single-mouse traps
| and found they didn't work. At that point I would google for
| the most effective poison (using some metric like time to death
| or LD50 per kg), check exterminator forums to see what they use
| as a last resort, etc. If the product is as deadly as promised,
| I'd give it a 5* rating and recommend it to all my IRL friends.
|
| Personally I've been burned by milquetoast products such as
| "eco friendly" cleaning liquids that just don't work. Product
| with many warning labels that are clearly targeted towards
| professionals are so much more effective in general.
| Spivak wrote:
| This mirrors my experience pretty well with most everything.
| It seems the only markets where you can find quality is stuff
| sold to professionals. It's not foolproof but hot damn is it
| noticeable.
| syshum wrote:
| "Eco Friendly cleaning liquids" i.e Water + Fragrance + Food
| Coloring
| estaseuropano wrote:
| I don't know if that's what they mean, but the pest control guy
| advised me to put poison in every single room, and in large
| rooms at several locations as often you will not know where
| they really stay/forage. E.g. you might notice the one mouse
| that goesi in the kitchen but not the others that live in the
| attic. Then again, maybe he was just trying to sell more.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| One can easily imagine the thoughts of the uninformed internet
| researcher: "Well, when I shopped around, these 12 gallon
| buckets we're the minimum size, so I guess you need to use a
| lot of it..."
| micetraps wrote:
| No poison needed.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/ShawnWoodsprimitive-archer
|
| Warning: some people may find some videos disturbing.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I use the old-fashioned snap traps. They work fine. Sometimes
| it's necessary to tweak the catch to make it more sensitive.
| They're made of wood and wire, and aren't an environmental
| problem.
|
| I live near a greenbelt and there's a never-ending invasion of
| mice. If I leave the garage door open and unattended, they're in
| in a flash and setting up shop. The only way to get rid of them
| is the traps, and you have to get rid of them.
|
| Peanut butter bait is irresistible. I used to use gloves to bait
| them cuz the books say they mice are deterred by human smell.
| They aren't. They aren't deterred by The Cat, either, as they
| know The Cat prefers human flesh. They're not very smart, either,
| as if you put two traps adjacent, they'll crawl over the body of
| their buddy dead in the first one and get caught by the second.
| netcan wrote:
| Rats tend to be more clever, and harder to trap than mice
| WalterBright wrote:
| The snap traps still work on them every time.
| Amezarak wrote:
| I sometimes get mice in the house, and found snap traps to be
| totally ineffective. They worked at first, but when I had more
| than one mouse in the house, they seemed to learn to avoid them
| and even how to eat the bait without setting off the mechanism.
|
| The most generally effective trap I have found is glue traps.
| They are an awful device but very effective. Unfortunately, you
| have to kill the trapped mice yourself. They have usually
| sustained serious injuries in an attempt to free themselves, so
| even if you wanted to free them, it's too late. They will also
| catch other pests (like insects), while being relatively safe
| for any larger animal - I wouldn't put one anywhere a cat, dog,
| or child could get into it, but if they did, liberal
| application of a solvent like rubbing alcohol will solve the
| problem.
|
| One time that did not work either, and after seeing an HN post
| on the matter, I filled a pyrex mixing bowl with cooking oil.
| It turns out this is fairly effective too. The video posted
| showed that dozens of mice had climbed in - I only had one
| left, but it worked. They get in and they can't get out. If you
| want a nonlethal trap for some reason, this is a good choice,
| and it's easy to put together if you don't have time to run to
| the store for a glue or snap trap. Of course, if you _would_
| like it to be lethal, well, you have the same problem you have
| with glue traps: it 's up to you to deliver a coup de grace.
|
| I have actually wondered why people go with poison - as the
| article even mentions one of the reviewers complaining about,
| you end up with rotting mice/rats in inaccessible places.
| bmurphy1976 wrote:
| > I sometimes get mice in the house, and found snap traps to
| be totally ineffective. They worked at first, but when I had
| more than one mouse in the house, they seemed to learn to
| avoid them and even how to eat the bait without setting off
| the mechanism
|
| They work, you just have to give it time. Keep the peanut
| butter fresh and smear it all over the mechanism to increase
| the probability of them setting off the trap.
|
| The daredevils will come back night after night and get
| bolder each time.
| rsync wrote:
| Also ... the simple snap traps are sometimes badly
| calibrated.
|
| As a poster further upthread alluded to, you can fix them.
| I bend the vertical plate a tiny bit so that there is a bit
| less "shelf" for the tension wire to rest on.
|
| Be careful - you can take this too far and make it a hair
| trigger...
|
| ALSO: I always mix a pinch of quinoa or tiny seeds into the
| peanut butter so it can't be licked clean - they must bump
| and move it to get the peanut butter.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Also be sure to work the peanut butter into the inside of
| the curl of the plate. That'll set the trap off when they
| try to get that last bit out.
|
| I didn't realize it at first, but the snap traps are
| diabolical in that if they go off when the mouse is
| licking there, the wire will catch them on the back of
| the neck, crushing it, which will kill the mice quickly
| and humanely.
|
| I don't want to kill them. Once, there was one running
| across the counter. Quick action with an inverted glass
| caught the little bugger. I slide a card under the glass
| so I could pick it up, took it outside, and let him go a
| hundred yards away.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > They worked at first, but when I had more than one mouse in
| the house, they seemed to learn to avoid them
|
| In my experience they never learn.
|
| > and even how to eat the bait without setting off the
| mechanism.
|
| That happens sometimes. I just bend the tab a bit so the trap
| becomes a hair trigger, when the slightest vibration will set
| it off.
| smallerfish wrote:
| There are better mouse traps than those sold at grocery
| stores.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082LP4VS1 - snap traps of this
| type are easier to set, and were more reliable at killing
| mice for me.
|
| https://www.walmart.com/ip/Authenzo-Humane-Mouse-Trap-
| Smart-... - live traps were also effective for me. You have
| to be strategic about where you put them. I kept a bucket of
| water on the porch and would dunk the whole trap with mouse
| inside to drown it. Less humane perhaps than snap traps, but
| better than glue or poison. If you rotate between kinds of
| trap week over week you can get pretty reliable results.
| tartoran wrote:
| I find glue traps as inhumane, the mice get trapped and they
| die an agonizing slow death. Once trapped they cannot be
| detached from the glue bed without their skin being ripped
| off their bodies.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Usually when they were caught in the trap, I woke up to
| them squeaking or thrashing around within a few minutes to
| at most hours of them being caught and drowned them by
| placing the trap upside down in water.
|
| I agree it is not a merciful way to go, but they do not
| make good houseguests and other methods proved ineffective.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yah, I was horrified at that. Never used glue traps again.
| spinach wrote:
| The people who go with poison are probably trying to get rid
| of rats on an industrial scale, in warehouses and such.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| I used to live in a rural area. As soon as it began to get
| cold the mice - and sometimes a few rats - would start their
| annual pilgrimage from the freezing, dangerous fields into
| the nice warm safe human houses.
|
| I bought some live catch traps. The mice blocked the
| entrances.
|
| Really. They collected all kinds of crap that was on the
| floor and pushed it into the entrance holes.
|
| If I'd known about the cooking oil trick, I'd have used that
| instead.
| tomxor wrote:
| I wonder if there is a more sustainable way of dissuading
| rodents from ever entering a building.
|
| I once had a terrible ant problem, they would always find their
| way into the kitchen. I tried a variety of products either
| intended to kill off the actual ant nests directly or trap the
| invaders, but there was always some quantity of ants remaining
| that would persist. Then I tried one product that was to simply
| be sprayed around the entrances like an invisible barrier, the
| ants would encounter it and just turn around. This turned out
| to be far more effective, and I felt like less of a jerk by not
| carpet bombing all the local ant nests.
|
| I guess it might be harder to induce such behaviour in a
| rodent, I think the spray exploits the fact that ants leave
| chemical trails, so even if one of them figures out a path the
| rest wont follow. But the constant game of killing and
| collecting invaders must be exhausting.
| devb wrote:
| I managed to control my serious ant problem by feeding them.
| I would set up plates of sugar or sugary food outside, away
| from the house. Over time I got fewer and fewer scouts coming
| in to the house to snoop around.
| randallsquared wrote:
| I would expect this only works for you because something
| else is preventing population growth in ants near your
| house.
| darkerside wrote:
| Either this or confirmation bias. Ants will reproduce
| colonies and expand to take as much resources as you're
| willing to give them.
| giardini wrote:
| Fire ants seemed at first a scourge in Texas but they
| also eliminated certain pests. During the time I presided
| over a condominium we had no need of termite or carpenter
| ant control, thanks to our ever-alert fire ants.
|
| Once the pests are gone, if necessary you can reduce the
| fire ants' population with say, Amdro. By simply paying
| attention, you can keep your lawn and buildings in a
| steady state vis-a-vis insect pests.
|
| I was not so successful with alleged mice/rats. Some
| tenants insisted there were rats present. We _do_ have an
| abundance of possums but I 've never seen a rat or mouse
| here and baby possums are often mistaken for rats. So I
| put out some mouse/rat bait boxes. The results over the
| first season was only two dead _very_ small baby possums,
| indeed small enough to enter the rat /mouse trap, eat the
| anticoagulant and die before leaving. After that I threw
| out the rat/mouse traps.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I have done this as well. An abundance of food and water
| near their nest will keep them from wandering. If you
| occasionally remove the food you get the bonus of them
| scouting your house frame for termite larva. If they find
| even one larva, there will be an army of ants eradicating
| them within minutes. Ants can go where termite control can
| not.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Salt. Ants taste with receptors on thier feet. Walking on
| salt is painful to them. Smear some salty water and let it
| dry. No ant scout will ever cross the line. Ive used that
| trick countless times to keep ants off of counters or from
| crossing open doors in summer.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Cats definitely work against mice, you just need cats which
| actually hunt them. Most of today's domestic cats probably
| didn't learn to hunt.
| cbsmith wrote:
| ? I thought cats just instinctively know how to hunt mice;
| I've yet to meet a house cat that didn't.
| sekh60 wrote:
| I miss my cat, we called her triple-kill Mari since many
| times we would wake up and see the dead rats neatly arranged
| on the deck.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Our cat certainly hunts mice. The problem is she considers
| them presents to give to bring back home.
| toast0 wrote:
| My barn cat likes to present me with just the organs. One
| time, he presented them on a bed of grass, like a fancy
| chef. He's got a closet in the back of the structure with a
| (cat) door to the outside and a ramp, so he had to work
| hard to get those blades of grass up and into his room to
| show me.
| bumblebritches5 wrote:
| Can confirm, my grandpa swore by peanut butter.
| boppo1 wrote:
| > is this a tongue-in-cheek joke or am I missing some evidence?
| praptak wrote:
| For a Cat to work on mice it has to be a Mouser. I can't
| pretend I know the full theory of Mousers but it seems that
| females brought up by Mouser mothers in a mouse-rich
| environment are the best Mousers, since they are taught to kill
| from their earliest years.
| JoBrad wrote:
| Of course, a good mouser is also likely a good birder.
| mbg721 wrote:
| I don't need a mouse exterminating machine, I just need to
| dissuade additional mice from showing up. Even my untrained
| cat is okay at that; she'll eventually kill a mouse, but gets
| disappointed when her plaything stops moving.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Then all you have to be concerned with is avoiding
| toxoplasmosis exposure.
| fipar wrote:
| The most important precaution is daily cleaning of litter
| boxes, since the parasite does not become infectious until
| after a day of being expelled from the cat through its
| feces.
|
| Also, cats only spread the parasite for up to three weeks
| after becoming infected themselves.
|
| This has more info about this: https://www.cdc.gov/parasite
| s/toxoplasmosis/gen_info/faqs.ht...
|
| Also, for anyone curious about parasites, this book is a
| gem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_Rex
| tartoran wrote:
| True, some cats couldn't care less about mice. I had an
| outdoor cat that was into pigeons which I didn't have a
| problem with. At the same time the dog we had was a natural
| mouser. She got the problem under control.
| sonofhans wrote:
| That's not been my experience, and I've lived with dozens of
| cats. Currently we have three cats, siblings. They were found
| orphaned, a few days old, and raised bottle-fed by humans.
| They never had a cat mother. All three of them regularly
| delivery rodents to the house as gifts.
| willcipriano wrote:
| They don't have to be all the good of a mouse hunter to lower
| the number of mouse sightings you'll have. Rodents have a
| built in fear of car urine and cat dander, so just their
| presence will deter mice.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Rodents have a built in fear of car urine and cat dander,
| so just their presence will deter mice.
|
| I thought so too. But nope.
| jbaber wrote:
| All I did was go to the adoption place and ask for a slightly
| older cat who'd been on the street long enough to be a
| hunter. They were very happy I wasn't asking for a cute
| kitten. He came litter trained, fixed, and kills everything
| that gets in the house.
| pvaldes wrote:
| If you have a big enough garden, you could put an owl nest box
| in a calm place when the owlets constant screeching noise will
| not suppose a problem. Owls can be territorial and attack to
| protect the nest also, so leave them far from the house and
| alone. Unlike traps, they will catch ten mice by night each
| night and will dispose of the corpses so you don't need to.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P-KWBSbis4
| emerged wrote:
| I use a reflective metal owl to deter woodpeckers who love
| destroying my house. It seems to be effective because I've
| not seen or heard the little peckers since. Your comment
| makes me wonder if these would also help with mice.
| ocschwar wrote:
| Just saw that my neighbor installed one on his fence. I'll
| ask him in a week how that's going.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If you're lucky enough to have one move in. I have a bat
| house in hopes of natural mosquito control. It's been a few
| years and there's no sign of use.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| Bats are amazing neighbors. For years our neighboor had a
| massive pine tree that was hone to a pretty significant bat
| population. We would always see them come out at night and
| start feeding. Mosquitoes were never an issue. A few years
| ago the tree had to be cut down because it was rotting
| inside and was at danger of falling down. Unfortunately the
| bats haven't returned, and everyone in my neighborhood is
| now fighting the mosquito.
| 14 wrote:
| The only issue I have with bats is I am now terrified of
| them. Several years back my kids Taekwondo instructor, a
| 21 year old picture of perfect health magnificent human
| being, was killed from rabies after a bat brushed against
| him in the night while taking a pee on the side of the
| road. Months later after it was too late signs of rabies
| appeared and he died in hospital. It was devastating. The
| bats in my neighbourhood commonly swoop down near you if
| in the yard and it is now scary.
| Something1234 wrote:
| https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/location/usa/surveillance/huma
| n_r...
|
| This is absolutely nuts. Also how would he know that he
| wasn't bitten if it brushed up against him.
| ocschwar wrote:
| He didn't know. Bat bites are barely perceptible.
| 14 wrote:
| I am not sure by what part you think is nuts? Worrying
| about bats? I don't like to play with odds and now
| personally know someone who died from it. I would rather
| not take a chance. Here is an article about his death and
| the rabies in the bats in our area.
| https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/mobile/man-21-dies-
| after-...
| nsxwolf wrote:
| I woke up one night with a bat flying circles around the
| ceiling of my bedroom. It flew all over my house until I
| trapped it in a room. It flew with total precision, like
| it was at home in a cave, nothing like a confused bird
| flapping around in your house.
|
| I paid $400 to have it captured and tested (which
| involves killing it). It was negative. It could have bit
| me in my sleep, and I was glad to not get that series of
| shots (at the time it was those ones that go into your
| gut) or wait it out and wonder if I would die a year
| later.
| matwood wrote:
| We're fortunate enough to have an owl (I assume a pair) and a
| couple of hawk pairs in my neighborhood (I can see them in
| the nest). There are also snakes (I've had to coerce a 3'
| black racer off my porch). Rodents have never been an issue.
|
| The problem with denser city living is there isn't a lot of
| habitat for natural predators.
| samwillis wrote:
| We have a couple of Red Kites nesting quite close by. Love
| watching them, and don't seem to have a rodent problem.
| derefr wrote:
| There's a natural predator in cities whose habitat is "your
| couch."
|
| But people say that allowing cats to be "outdoor cats" is a
| _bad_ thing.
|
| (Cats _do_ hunt a bunch of species that _aren 't_ going to
| try to enter your house, and may in fact be endangered. But
| then... so would owls, hawks, and snakes living in the same
| areas. My point isn't so much that having cats outdoors is
| good; but rather that we should apply the same standard to
| having any of these other predatory species in our
| neighbourhoods that we do for cats.)
| Something1234 wrote:
| Yeah but they too good at hunting the ones who aren't
| going to enter my house. They're little psychos[1], but I
| love my little psychos.
|
| [1]: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill
| emodendroket wrote:
| I'm not sure it's actually true that we should apply the
| same standard to predators who are naturally present in
| an ecosystem and predators introduced by humans. The
| natural ones have to some extent demonstrated that
| they're capable of existing without causing their various
| forms of prey to go extinct.
| wpm wrote:
| Because cats hunts for fun and don't even eat what they
| kill half the time. They're just out murdering birds for
| sport.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I see the balls of crushed bones and fur on my driveway all
| the time (what comes out of a coyote after it eats a mouse).
| There are eagles and owls around here, too. Still plenty of
| mice.
| cainxinth wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_a_better_mousetrap,_and_...
| skinkestek wrote:
| If anyone is interested there is a YouTube channels dedicated
| to mouse traps and other rodent traps: Mousetrap Monday.
|
| Edit: he also has a bit about rat poison somewhere where he
| explains how to prevent non-rodents from eating rat poison. I
| cannot vouch for it but it sounded smart to me (farming
| background).
|
| Edit 2, here's the video:
| https://mousetrapmonday.com/videos/why-rat-x-is-the-only-rat...
|
| In a couple of the cuts we can see ingredient names, but I,
| like Shawn in the video take the declaration with a pinch of
| salt.
|
| For me I'll use traps anyway at my current "farm".
| [deleted]
| pcmaffey wrote:
| The problem with most traps is that they only catch one at a
| time. By far the most effective way to deal with a mouse
| problem is a bucket with a ramp leading up to a cylinder(bought
| online) that spins and drops the mouse into the bucket when
| they come for the peanut butter taped to the cylinder. You can
| fill the bucket with water to drown them or something non
| lethal.
|
| It can catch many mice at once, they stay inside the trap once
| caught, and there's no messy cleanup/ rebating.
|
| There's nothing worse than a maimed mouse dragging a snap trap
| around your house all night...
| dexterdog wrote:
| Yup. I had some in my attic with the start of cold weather. I
| put the bucket out for a night and had 7 in there the next
| morning.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| > There's nothing worse than a maimed mouse dragging a snap
| trap around your house all night...
|
| Glue the trap to the floor?
| kingcharles wrote:
| I had one of those and somehow the fuckers would always clean
| the cylinder and not fall in. I lubed the shit out of the
| cylinder too. I put a video camera on it. They would keep
| their back feet on the top of the ramp and stretch their
| whole body along the cylinder to lick it clean without
| tipping in.
| dave78 wrote:
| There's a YouTube guy who does mouse trap reviews and he
| loves the rolling log thing. he recently put up a new video
| on it and pointed out that you don't want the rolling log
| to be too easy to roll because then they are more careful
| venturing out on it.
|
| I also have one of those that I lubed up as well (not
| realizing that was a bad idea) in my garage and last fall I
| caught 11 mice in just a few days. 3 so far this year.
| pcmaffey wrote:
| That's crafty. I put the peanut butter in a ring of tape
| hanging around the middle of the cylinder. I did this to
| keep it from falling off into the water and eventually,
| getting moldy (I keep the bucket permanently set). It also
| means I almost never have to re-set it... I wonder, if
| something like that would be more difficult to reach
| stretched out. You also must have large mice.
| jrootabega wrote:
| I think it's highly variable, depending on the size of the
| population, how hungry they are, if they have other food
| options available, and their culture and genetics. Sometimes
| the traps get them, and sometimes they definitely don't. And if
| the traps don't get all of them, the problem isn't really
| addressed.
| authed wrote:
| Here is a cool mouse trap video that also shows you that Google
| not only censors white supremacists, terrorists and similar
| content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKyIcX6I_AQ&t=726s
| fortran77 wrote:
| I've also seen Termite pesticides with similar sales restrictions
| for sale -- and there are plenty of how-to videos now on how to
| apply them yourself, without the need for some company to come
| over and tent your house, etc.
| syshum wrote:
| That is the thing people often do not understand about
| regulations, even EPA regulations.
|
| It is very often not about safety or protection of environment,
| it is about protectionism of businesses. No Pleb you are
| clearly to dumb to do anything for yourself, you must depend on
| "The Experts" that are government approved "professionals",
| never ever do anything for yourself....
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean I think I would be fine with a world where anyone
| could buy the stuff so long as they went through and passed a
| class on how to use it. I think that would be a fine middle-
| ground.
| s5300 wrote:
| We (younger than 30ish) are in for some crazy times IMO
|
| You can order parts to reliably make guns fully automatic
| straight to your door, thousands of rounds of ammunition for a
| weeks worth of minimum wage work straight to your door, poisons
| such as what this article refers to straight to your door... gun
| suppressors straight to your door...
|
| I just think were going to see a ton of people in the US snapping
| and doing crazy shit if we fall into economic decline & keep
| dismantling our social safety nets.
|
| When I was living in San Diego, I became aware of a dude in a
| totally normal ass suburb leaving poisoned meat around the entire
| block, for months on end, after the apparent last straw of dog
| shit on his lawn snapped. I'm not entirely sure why, but
| everybody knew - and the cops/city did nothing/were unable to do
| anything about it. Would be crazy to find out if he was getting
| whatever poison he used straight from Amazon.
| Aengeuad wrote:
| The way gun suppressors work in movies and TV is complete
| fiction, in real life suppressors can attenuate gun shots by
| maybe 15-35 dB SPL at best. 140 dB SPL is the threshold at
| which sound causes pain, 120 dB SPL is the threshold that risks
| instantaneous noise-induced hearing loss, and most rifles and
| handguns using standard ammunition are in the 140-170 dB SPL
| range. Even with a suppressor the volume a typical gun produces
| is enough to be painful and to cause permanent hearing loss if
| no additional hearing protection is used. In the typical best
| case scenario using an extremely underpowered subsonic .22LR
| round with a suppressor a gun shot will still be in the 120 dB
| SPL range, and for reference, hunting even small muntjac deer
| with a .22LR would be considered inhumane and in many parts of
| the world (including many American states) it is illegal to do
| so. It is a round intended to shoot rodents and birds.
|
| I realise this comment is a nitpick but it's something that
| needs to be brought up any time suppressors are brought up. The
| only relevance suppressors have on the gun control argument is
| that their use and sale means that gun operators have less risk
| of suffering from hearing loss (especially when shooting
| indoors in a range) and people living near shooting ranges are
| less likely to complain about noise, i.e., there's no public
| safety argument here, it's purely ideological, and that's fine
| if it's what you're going for but it's not a compelling
| argument or one that holds up to scrutiny. As a point of
| comparison, there's very little controversy over suppressors in
| Europe and typically no additional regulations are placed on
| their ownership beyond the regulations necessary to own the
| guns that they're used with.
| s5300 wrote:
| No, you can get literal Hollywood quiet with suppressors. If
| you've never gotten to experience that, sorry I guess haha.
|
| A Kel-Tec CP33 or Ruger MKIV with various forms of attached
| suppressors or integrated suppressors shooting CCI subsonic
| .22 is Hollywood quiet. Less noise than a BB gun.
|
| There are various other calibers that can get pretty damn
| close to as quiet as those as well.
|
| For your traditional military calibers across the globe -
| yes, they're still pretty damn loud suppressed. I think .50
| bmg or Lapua suppressed is still as loud as 7.62x39
| unsuppressed.
|
| But to say you can't get Hollywood quiet is simply incorrect,
| and there's still a factor of louder calibers pitch being
| changed to something that a person not in the immediate
| vicinity could confuse as construction instead of gunfire.
|
| As much as _I_ personally enjoy suppressors... I do have
| issue with the fact anybody can get their hands on one next
| day. Just work for a gun range in any mid sized town for two
| weeks and your honest thoughts about just about literally
| anybody being able to obtain a firearm will likely change.
| People are _fucking dumb_ man.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Said Hollywood quiet is in excess of 80 dB still, though it
| sounds like someone having a carburator engine pop and not
| a gunshot.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Having seen videos of a suppressed MP-5, they make a
| rapid clicking noise on full auto. It's still loud by my
| estimation but it doesn't sound like a gun.
| seabird wrote:
| What you're hearing is camera attenuation. They are still
| very loud, they just won't outright blow your ears out.
| It might not sound like a gun if you don't know what a
| suppressor sounds like, but you will still be able to
| hear it unless the noise of the environment is hearing-
| damaging loud. Just about the only things that are
| Hollywood-quiet are subsonic suppressed .22s and .45s,
| but the former is incredibly anemic and the latter is not
| cheap.
| seabird wrote:
| You can order parts to make your gun fully automatic straight
| to your door without filling out a Form 4 if you want to commit
| a federal crime that the ATF likely will follow up on. You can
| order suppressors straight to your door without filling out a
| Form 4 if you want to commit a federal crime that the ATF
| likely will follow up on. You can _not_ buy thousands of rounds
| worth of any ammo other than .22 with a week's worth of minimum
| wage pay (if you know something that I don't, let me know where
| you're finding these deals). The time will probably come for
| poison like this very soon.
|
| None of this is to say that terrorism isn't fairly easy, all
| things considered. The law does very little to stop these
| things before they happen. The big takeaway is that the vast
| majority of people aren't violent and unreasonable. You've
| always been able to do these things, usually more easily in the
| past than you could today, but we've never had issues with it
| (at least in the US) to the point where the average person you
| bump into on the street will have personally experienced it.
| sueders101 wrote:
| "You can _not_ buy thousands of rounds worth of any ammo
| other than .22 with a week's worth of minimum wage pay (if
| you know something that I don't, let me know where you're
| finding these deals)."
|
| It's pretty close. Ammoseek shows 9mm starting at ~$0.30 per
| round, and most other popular pistol calibers starting at
| ~$0.40 to ~$0.45 per round. And it's easy to find better
| deals if you're checking the r/gundeals subreddit
| periodically. That puts 2000 rounds of 9mm at around the
| gross income weekly income for someone earning $15/hour.
| akomtu wrote:
| 600 bucks also buy a lot of cheap gasoline and matchsticks.
| s5300 wrote:
| Three (3) whole YEET Cannons
| seabird wrote:
| The West Coast is not the entire US. Most states don't have
| a $15 minimum wage. That pricing is mostly at 1000 round
| quantities. 50 round boxes are usually between $20 to $25 a
| box.
|
| The assertion is correct in the sense that somebody living
| in a state with an exceptionally high minimum wage can buy
| a thousand rounds of ammo that isn't .22 in a week's pay if
| they have absolutely no other expenses is just barely
| correct in a strictly technical sense, but doesn't really
| add up for the purposes of this conversation. Even if you
| were willing to go completely broke spending every cent you
| make on ammo, you would need another $500 minimum to buy a
| cheap carbine and enough magazines to carry 200 rounds with
| you in a reasonable manner.
| s5300 wrote:
| You're correct on the vast majority of people aren't violent
| and unreasonable part... but I very much think you're missing
| a point.
|
| Yes, you could mostly always buy something like a part to
| make a gun fully automatic or a suppressor online. Anybody
| with the slightest technical skills could make the full auto
| parts with some metal stock & a dremel. But a lot of people
| aren't thinking into it that much when they're impulsive.
|
| But in the year 2000, you would have to put a bit of effort
| into finding these things online, and if you were underage it
| would have been much harder to instantly/easily purchase.
|
| Now wish.com and everything else exist - you can find the
| parts in _seconds_ , and you have a plethora of ways to
| easily purchase them underage & shipped to your door in two
| days.
|
| _Yes_ , the vast majority of these are ATF/Fed or whatever
| else honeypots... but sometimes that doesn't really matter if
| you already have a plan & are ready the day your parts come
| in.
|
| 1000 rounds of 7.62x39 is ~$350. Do minimum wage workers not
| take in ~$350 weekly anymore?
| seabird wrote:
| You can make any firearm with a pistol grip that has the
| charging handle fixed to the bolt carrier full-auto by
| tying a string to a charging handle, wrapping it around the
| grip and then the trigger. You could very easily figure
| this out by just sitting down and looking at the gun. I
| can't think of a single instance where somebody has done
| this in a mass shooting. The fact of the matter is that
| full-auto guns are nowhere near as dangerous or "useful"
| for mass shootings as people think they are.
|
| 1000 rounds of Russian steel-case can be found with some
| effort for a price like that _right now_. With the Russian
| import ban, it 's getting significantly harder to find.
| Federal minimum wage is $7.25 -- you _might_ be able get
| 1000 rounds of 9mm if you find a deal and are willing to
| spend literally 100% of your paycheck on it. 1000 rounds of
| anything other than 9mm on federal minimum wage is a fluke
| that cannot be reliably repeated.
| cestith wrote:
| Minimum wage where? $7.25 for 40 hours is still $290 before
| taxes, yes? That's federal minimum wage in the United
| States, and that's only for untipped workers on W-2 who can
| manage to get a full time schedule.
|
| Some states have substantially higher minimums, though, and
| don't allow wage discrimination against wait staff.
| laurent92 wrote:
| The dismantling of safety nets is a circumvoluted problem.
|
| Safety nets are a feature of rather leftist politics (To me,
| helping others is the core of leftism). However, the same ones
| who set up the safety nets, have a racial preference towards
| helping those they perceive as in the worst situation.
| Yesterday it was the factory workers, today it's women, african
| americans and LGBTQIA+.
|
| So, by increasing the safety nets, we are not making things
| better for the people you are talking about, the white men. For
| them, no help is coming: They are the subject of the joke, the
| black sheep of people who want to help.
|
| This incongruity ensures that the divide will only widen, not
| reduce, as you increase help for people in need.
|
| As an example, shooters in school are often white kids getting
| bullied, who snap. Did we end bullying? Do we make
| documentaries on who bullied them? No, we further pile upon the
| hate towards the people who snap (hard to do otherwise). It
| ensures that the next guy won't find help against his bullies,
| and this beautiful circle continues... I say beautiful because,
| to abstain from finding solutions, there has to be people who
| find this beautiful.
|
| Anyway. If social help went to everyone, and if everyone were
| considered as important parts of the society, people wouldn't
| snap that much.
| [deleted]
| heurisko wrote:
| > To me, helping others is the core of leftism
|
| People on the right wing also want to help others, but the
| method is different: helping people to help themselves.
|
| I think there are risks to both. People can become dependent
| on safety nets. People can also need more help than just
| "pull yourself up by your bootstraps".
|
| > I say beautiful because, to abstain from finding solutions,
| there has to be people who find this beautiful.
|
| From an outside perspective, shootings are an intractable US
| problem because of the US's relationship with guns. It's not
| that people are "abstaining" because they somehow like the
| situation.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I suspect it's not the US relationship with guns, but the
| US relationship with _violence_.
|
| The national myth about the founding of the US is about
| using violence to solve problems. And Americans seem very
| quick to turn to violence when under any sort of perceived
| threat.
|
| I doubt getting rid of guns, even if you could find a way
| to do it, would solve the problem.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| To play devil's advocate and be only a little cheeky, it
| seems the way the right of recent American politics tries
| to help people help themselves is to offer them military-
| grade weaponry, deregulated environmental protections, laws
| to enforce sexual and vice Christian-specific rules not
| widely agreed on by non-Christians, and decreased worker
| protections. This seems almost perfectly calculated to help
| them become criminals or wage slaves to modern robber
| barons. The people most served by the modern right are the
| robber barons themselves (except for the weapons part). If
| I was a robber baron the last thing I'd want is all my
| workers watching their livelihoods disappear to all have
| automatic weapons.
|
| I think this is why so much messaging goes to convince
| people that their worsening situation is because LGBTQ+ or
| immigrants exist and God is punishing them for the
| "wickedness of the land."
|
| I myself very much would prefer a model that helps people
| help themselves, but I am unclear what policies would
| achieve that goal that aren't already supported by the
| left. Many Americans don't want hand outs, they want
| dignity and a good job that pays them a thriving wage.
|
| However, they also will vote against policies that enforce
| a fair wage, because it's coming from the mouths of
| "sinners" who for all they know are causing this via
| "wickedness." The left can be very condescending and is
| large enough to have lots of people who similarly think
| that lack of ideological purity is the cause of the
| nation's issues, only the ideology is not completely agreed
| on by any of followers, so it's always shifting, which
| gives the impression that it's less serious and is very
| easy to mock. There's a lot about making places safer,
| which runs counter to how many Americans want to see
| themselves: they don't want places to be safer, they want
| to be tougher individuals, so such attempts feel weak to
| them.
|
| As someone who's studied the Bible far more than average (I
| read New Treatment Greek and went to seminary for a bit), I
| feel like there is _very_ little thought about sins like
| pride, hatefulness, and gluttony in the modern church, so
| it's only a partial truth according to the Bible.
| Describing the classic "fruits of the Spirit" does not
| sound anything like the modern Right: love, joy, peace,
| patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.
|
| It seems a situation where the messaging has just enough
| Christian ethics to resemble some of what one would hear
| from church leadership, but without the inward reflection
| required of most of the New Testament. It's very Old
| Testament with messaging that implies "it's these sinners
| among you who are the problem and need to be stopped or
| killed." The New Testament would instead lead someone to
| conclude that if they are being punished it is from their
| own personal sin. This is enforced with lessons like "let
| he without sin cast the first stone."
|
| I really diverged a bit here, but I've been thinking a lot
| about the situation of politics. The right cannot be
| understood without understanding how much of that worldview
| is shaped by religion, but also that it really isn't a
| Christian worldview, it's an Old Testament worldview. Too
| many people crave "righteous" wrath against sinners, not
| humble admission that all are sinners all the time, and we
| all need grace and forgiveness not a murderous rampage.
|
| As it pertains to policies, I'm not sure how to even start
| to deescalate the situation. But attempting to do so
| without understanding the worldviews involved will never
| work.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| I think this is oversimplifying the political compass.
| There are a whole class of people that believe helping
| people should be voluntary, not mandatory. Dignity is
| something that comes from within, but if you want a
| "thriving wage", negotiate for it. The left supports all
| sorts of policies that make helping people compulsory, at
| which point it starts to more resemble slavery than
| charity.
|
| How would you define a "fair" wage? Enough to stay alive?
| Raise a family? Own a house? A car? A TV? An air
| conditioner? I personally don't see how entitling people
| to these things is remotely "fair". You'll note that none
| of this has anything remotely to do with religion.
|
| > _I 'm not sure how to even start to deescalate the
| situation._
|
| The best way would be to refrain from imposing your view
| of "good" or "fair" on other people. Society is about
| coexisting peacefully, not binding everyone into a single
| ideology.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| You're right, it's definitely an oversimplification.
|
| I don't think though we live in a society that could
| allow people to negotiate for a thriving wage without a
| power as large as the government. It is in no way a
| hyperbole to state that if the American government's
| worker protections weaken much more we will have
| companies with their own private armies forcing people
| into company towns like what happened to our great
| grandparents. It wasn't that long ago, and a lot of
| people have forgotten how much blood was shed to give us
| the safely nets we have today. And yet so many people act
| as if individual freedom is what earned us those rights,
| not the government's strong arm and labor unions.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| You've rather hit the nail on the head - companies
| shouldn't be allowed to use violence (private armies) in
| order to force people to cooperate. Likewise, government
| should not be allowed to force terms of employment on
| employers. When things turn violent is the exact point
| the government should intervene, no sooner. It should
| otherwise refrain from interfering with private, peaceful
| negotiations between its citizens.
|
| Kellogg's is a perfect example here - the employees tried
| to collectively bargain for higher wages, and the
| employer decided that the cost of replacing the workforce
| was lower than the cost of meeting their demands. No
| violence required, just a voluntary basis for
| cooperation. This is how it _should_ work.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| And yet the power Kellogg's has means that they can just
| find enough desperate people elsewhere to take their
| unlivable wage. It's a race to the bottom, and the end is
| a few massive companies all colluding to pay slave wages.
| See Amazon and Walmart for examples of this happening
| right now. People think that market will reach
| equilibrium, but don't realize that equilibrium will be
| reached with third world style factories with 12 hour
| days and dorms for the "employees" and nets outside the
| windows so they can't even die the way they want.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| heh, define "unlivable", these people are clearly still
| alive. Unskilled labour is usually in surplus. The only
| reason the likes of Walmart pay as little as they do is
| because our government subsidises their employees. We've
| already reached the equilibrium, we've just offshored all
| the suffering so we don't have to look at it. We still
| consume goods made in these places. By the way, the
| factories in places like Bangladesh offer an improvement
| in quality of life compared to subsistence farming, which
| is why people work there. Isn't that a good thing?
| astura wrote:
| How old are you?
|
| This is factually incorrect, when I was in school bullying
| was considered totally and completely normal and not
| something to be concerned about at all.
|
| Now we have high-profile national and international anti-
| bullying campaigns by both governments, NGOs, and private
| for-profit companies. We have anti-bullying legislation and
| bullying is even something the CDC studies.
| kingcharles wrote:
| Can confirm that fully automatic AR-15 is effect against both
| rats and mice.
| geuis wrote:
| Ok this is insane.
|
| A couple days ago I was trying to purchase some new inexpensive
| but highly reviewed smoke detectors for my apartment. However I
| ran into an issue that due to some California law, they can't be
| delivered because they have to be "10 year" units. The 10-year
| units are 2-3x the price.
|
| On a whim just a couple minutes ago, I did the same search the
| author did in the article for "bromethalin" on Amazon. Lots of
| products showed up. I picked the one that had next day Prime
| delivery for San Francisco. At this step I just left it in my
| cart.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005BV0DD2?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_...
|
| I read a bit further into the article where he talks about
| California it's banned. To double check that, I went ahead and
| completed the order. Went through just fine. Confirmed delivery
| by tomorrow, 12/12/2021.
|
| Then I had a momentary minor freak out and cancelled the order
| asap.
|
| So yeah OP has an entirely valid point and it's incredibly easy
| to buy this stuff. I even went with Amazon's recommendation and
| got free shipping.
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| I stumbled across corn starch a while ago, after I nearly killed
| one of my dogs with these poisons. Corn starch, as in the packet
| of "corn flour" many people will have sitting in their pantries
| (it makes a very good thickener) that we all eat and is totally
| harmless to just about anything.
|
| Anything except rodents, apparently. What I stumbled across said
| it's a very effective rodenticide:
|
| http://www.ratpoisonfacts.org/low-toxicity-rodenticides/
|
| My initial reaction was "bullshit". But intrigued I searched
| further. You can't use anything in the EU without some
| declaration, and indeed there is a declaration saying you are
| allowed to use corn starch as a rodenticide in the EU:
|
| https://echa.europa.eu/documents/10162/44bfef85-fb69-79f0-c0...
|
| It's even mentioned on Wikipedia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powdered_corn_cob and you can buy
| it off the shelf: https://myhousepests.com/rats/natural-rat-
| poison.html.
|
| Needless to say, it's total harmless to cats, dogs, kids and
| owls. And painless for the rodents. They starve and dehydrate,
| dying of heart failure in the end, but yet don't feel thirsty or
| hungry, apparently. But they do feel lethargic and generally
| wander off outside to die in a burrow somewhere, so the smell
| isn't a problem. It is in short the perfect rodenticide. It's
| almost magic.
|
| But not in Australia, because it's not approved as a rodenticide
| in Australia. I have no idea why. Maybe it really is a scam, or
| even a giant conspiracy by the rats to trick us into feeding
| them. The Australian government is very good at proactive
| protecting it's citizens from scams. (I think that's why we are
| one of the worst countries in the world at falling for internet
| scams per capita - because this person wouldn't be contacting me
| if the government didn't allow it.) And if it's so cheap, natural
| and safe, why the hell isn't everyone using it instead of these
| other poisons???
|
| I'm leaning towards a conspiracy. A conspiracy by the rats, or a
| conspiracy by the poisons manufacturers so they can keep selling
| us expensive poisons. But definitely a conspiracy.
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