And we’re back. Actually we seemed to be back last night after the evening storm passed, but that’s life.
Went on a trip over the local “roads” to bounce a draft of my proposal for taking over that brush maintenance job off somebody, which gave me a load of what the normal people around here have to put up with. The clay is saturated, the south wash runs bank to bank daily, the repair that Scott the Road Guy did to this one lethally slippery corner is failing fast, I’m driving diagonally in 4-wheel-drive on a main road, and it’s basically just another day in July. One of our too seasons: Too hot, too cold, too windy, too wet. I love it: It keeps the tourists away. But since it basically hasn’t rained since last summer, I’m having a hard time getting used to the mud again.
Really pretty day for most of yesterday, though. That’s the classic – though by no means invariable – pattern: Nice mornings, stormy afternoons. Yesterday in our immediate area the storms just threatened. we got some rain and thunder, but the big stuff passed us by. You never know. I took the respite as an opportunity to climb up to the top of Ian’s Cave and do something Landlady and I had discussed last weekend…
He keeps getting mice and an occasional rat in there, and we can’t for the life of us figure out how they’re getting in. I mean, the seams are covered in concrete and several feet of dirt, right? If ever there were a house that should be immune from rodents, this would be it. But there they are. Also they have a bad habit of getting in and then just dying – and really stinking the place up – which finally, once I thought about it for a moment, suggested that they weren’t burrowing in – they were falling in.
And if that theory holds, there are a couple of very convenient ways they could do that. I don’t know why so many would keep doing it, it makes no sense to me, but they’re mice. Why do I insist that they make sense? So anyway I’m hoping that’s fixed now.
Pro-tip: Everybody talks about duct tape and tie wire and they do have their charms. But also, for happiness in the redneck life, don’t run out of hardware cloth.
Joel – I assume those are vents of some sort and wiring conduits sticking up in the air. I am really surprised someone has left indoor romex exposed on the surface, for one rodents love chewing that plastic sheathing and for another it will turn brittle and crack with the UV as it has no protection. At least bury it or add more of the flex metal conduit.
I am assuming the “cave” is really a buried structure? Or did someone literally carve into a hill? Living underground in the area you are is not a bad idea. Look up the underground housing of Coober Pedy in Australia, some are quite elaborate and cool when it is blazing hot out.
That Romex was not exposed on the surface when it was in service.
We dug out the hillside, built a big Quonset hut shaped dome, sprayed it with a whole lot of Shotcrete, then replaced the hillside.
I’ve seen a nearly full grown mouse go through 1/4″ grid hardware cloth. Looked like a scene from that Terminator movie, going through prison bars. For mousepruf, 1/8″ grid (8 mesh) would be my recommendation.
Yeah, weird how sometimes the simplest way in is the explanation. Years back, we had a problem with yellow jacket wasps getting into the ranch house. We couldn’t figure out how they did it either. Well, we had forgot that when we added a porch, we removed the chimney stack for the wood burner inside. A 6″ diameter hole in wall leading to the stove. Duh !! it took about a year before we saw a yellow jacket just casually fly into the hole like nothing.
I’ve found that putting the mesh inside the pipe works vastly better. When it is over the pipe there inevitably still are enough gaps for mice to get in.