[WPRESTO]

To those with mouse problems

1) get the plastic snap-traps that look somewhat like a clip to put on a bag of chips. The are much-much easier to bait and set that the traditional design

2) Go to your local animal shelter and get a young cat or two. Unlike mechanical traps, once they know there's a mouse in the house, they will actively seek it out. Once they know it goes into a particular hiding spot, they will sit there for hours waiting to KILL it, or at least invite it for some play-time.

[lmd91343]

I had been thinking of showing what Father Xmas brought me, so prompted by your post I have. Mine is said to be a rat trap, it's quite big. I've been fighting mice for several years using mechanical traps (and I've got quite good at it by now*), but the electronic trap is quicker to set up and does not go off with temperature changes etc. They are supposed to be more humaine too. It has caught three mice so far. This is the best picture I can find, from the USA, but they are available in the UK and anywhere else I suppose. On the expensive side though.

* Mechanical traps - go for all-metal ones with a wide "pedal", file the end of the trigger wire dead square and bend it to exactly right-angles to the hole it fits in, set with zero overlap (ie hair-triggered), nail it to a heavy block of wood, and bait with Nutella.

Why would someone bring you rats?

[Racer X 69]

Why would someone bring you rats?

Rodents bring themselves.

[Marcus Rowland]

Ironically I used to have pet corn snakes which meant I had to buy frozen mice for them - unfortunately you shouldn't feed them wild-caught mice, especially in an urban home, because they may have been exposed to diseases and poisons which they are immune to but captive-bred snakes aren't.

Cats are a good idea but my flat is on the 2nd floor (US 3rd floor) and there's no access to the garden or outside world for a cat, short of me taking them and opening the security door etc., and it really doesn't seem fair to the cat. I did vaguely think about ferrets but I know a guy who used to keep them and they can trash the average home pretty fast. Also, if there are routes for mice to get in there are probably routes a ferret can use to get out.

I've bought a couple of glue traps and some poison bait - that was fairly effective the last time this happened, about ten years ago.

[edom31]

2nd floor (US 3rd floor)

Do we also do Freedom Units for building levels? This is insane hahha

[jawats]

Do we also do Freedom Units for building levels? This is insane hahha

Has to do with the US numbering the 1st floor as "1," second as "2" and so forth. In other countries, they may call the 1st floor "ground," for instance.

See here: https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/floors-building.htm

[edom31]

Has to do with the US numbering the 1st floor as "1," second as "2" and so forth. In other countries, they may call the 1st floor "ground," for instance.

I hear this... We do call Ground floor, but then jump into 2nd floor and so on. Thus, in other places you get a Ground and then a 1st floor?

[eddie1960]

I have a couple of new acquisitions, (and hopefully will be done for a very long time
MacBook Pro MX1Max 64 GB 16" - my first mac should have done it decades back am loving it . Blistering fast machine I have been unable to challenge yet - Stacked 50mp medium format Astro shots may do it (though I doubt it)
Benq 3220 Monitor to go with above when setup in doc
WD EX4100 My Cloud 40TB Raid for the above setup
Lacie 16TB big dock
Benro Polaris Astro Edition motorized tripod head/star tracker - Sponsored the Kickstarter 10 + months back, it just arrived, still figuring it out and waiting on clear skies but all the features seem to work properly
Fuji GFX50sii w 35-70 lens - while i love the 50R I bought I missed the IBIS and most lenses did not have OIS so I made the switch for xmas
Thanks, Dad for the inheritance - I have now spent what I allocated to upgrades

[jawats]

I hear this... We do call Ground floor, but then jump into 2nd floor and so on. Thus, in other places you get a Ground and then a 1st floor?

Exactly! In the US, "Ground" is a substitute for "1st" - thus, 2nd floor up from Ground [1st]. Other places, it's "ground," then 1st floor [up from Ground].

[tim60]

I had been thinking of showing what Father Xmas brought me, so prompted by your post I have. Mine is said to be a rat trap, it's quite big. I've been fighting mice for several years using mechanical traps (and I've got quite good at it by now*), but the electronic trap is quicker to set up and does not go off with temperature changes etc. They are supposed to be more humaine too. It has caught three mice so far. This is the best picture I can find, from the USA, but they are available in the UK and anywhere else I suppose. On the expensive side though.

* Mechanical traps - go for all-metal ones with a wide "pedal", file the end of the trigger wire dead square and bend it to exactly right-angles to the hole it fits in, set with zero overlap (ie hair-triggered), nail it to a heavy block of wood, and bait with Nutella.

In Australia we would leave out some green coloured grain, in a small tin. Quite soon the two or three would go away after we fed them that stuff. Came in a yellow and black box called Ratsack.

Here I sometimes see rats when running along the canal tow path. There is one area with a lot of moored boats that has a lot of rats.

[edom31]

Exactly! In the US, "Ground" is a substitute for "1st" - thus, 2nd floor up from Ground [1st]. Other places, it's "ground," then 1st floor [up from Ground].

I'll be honest and say that for the first time the Freedom Units make sense on this one. The whole miles/gallons/yards/feet/inches/lbs things are lame excuses to be different; but to take an escalator or elevator to reach the first floor is a bit out there...


Cool things!

[Kobie]

FA* 600 F/4 arrived today.
Here it is with the 150-450 to show the size difference.

[DamienW]

MacBook Pro MX1Max 64 GB 16" - my first mac should have done it decades back am loving it

Fun! I'll be picking up a new Mac sometime this year. My 2012 Mac Mini server is still running pretty well, but no more OS updates for it, so compatibility will become an issue eventually.

I work in IT, with Windows and Linux. At home I much prefer the Apple ecosystem.

Here it is with the 150-450 to show the size difference.

:O

[Kobie]

I forgot. I bought my very first brand new laptop. I was using a Lenovo T420 which I had upgraded over the years. It was time to get something more up to date. I didn't want to have to re-do this all over again so I splurged a bit.
Asus ROG STRIX, Ryzen 7 CPU with on Chip graphics, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB NVME SSD (extra slot available as well), Nvidia RTX 3050 Graphics card, 1080p screen. Oh, what a world of difference!

[Nakedgun]

.

This arrived today, a spare, for the now-discontinued 17-50 f/2.8:





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