Shotgun? Be sure to lead them.
I agree with Ray and all the others who are snap-trap fans. You can get a 3-pack of Victor traps for almost nothing at the hardware store or super market. I bait mine with peanut butter, too. It seems to be the best stuff.
I do NOT recommend those poison things. The mice will go off into your walls and die, and they will smell for a week or more. Yeah, the poisons advertise that they dry the mouse out before it dies, so they won’t decay and smell, but that claim smells almost as bad as a dead mouse carcass. With a trap, you’ll know exactly where the body ends up. (Suppose you poisoned a mouse, and it went into your tunnel to die? Hmmmmm…)
Up here in the Northeast, the mice move in when it gets cold, round about September or October. I’m busy for a few weeks, emptying the traps, but then it settles down. I might get one or two in the January thaw, but then I don’t see any more. I think they’d rather be outside in the spring and summer.
I’ve seen this done and it works. Place sticky traps at each end of the tunnel(s) in question before you leave the room. Next time you go in your unwelcome guests should still be in residence and unable to leave. Dispose of properly.
Did you ever hear the one about the group of recruits in infantry training. “Suppose,” says the sergeant, “that you are in your foxhole and suddenly you hear a rumbling sound and when you look out you discover a tank advancing on your position. What are you going to do?” He points to a recruit named Smith.
“Destroy it with an anti-tank rocket,” says Smith.
“Where will you get this anti-tank rocket?” asks the sergeant.
“Where’d you get the tank?” asks Smith.
Turn some hog snakes loose in the layout room; they will solve your mice problem in short order!
You then turn hogs loose to get rid of the snakes!
You then turn wolves loose to get rid of the hogs!
You then turn grizzly bears loose to get rid of the wolves!
You then turn ranchers loose to get rid of the grizzlies!
MOUSE FREE LAYOUT!
Where, you ask, are you going to get snakes, hogs, wolves, grizzly bears, and ranchers? I figure if mice can get in your layout room so can snakes, hogs, wolves, grizzly bears, and ranchers.
If this solution is too time-consuming go to your local Home Despot and buy a six-pack of mousetraps; that’ll get the job done muy pronto!
NOTE: don’t try the cat routine! Just as city-boys don’t know how to drive pick-up trucks city-cats don’t know how to catch mice!; city-cats catch 9-lives in the can!
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Call Gieco. They need stand-ins for their Gecko.[(-D]
How about a working rotary snow plow…
O.K. Who painted my wheels and tracks with this bright red paint instead of the proper rusty colour.
[#oops]
Blue Flamer.
Maybe you’re looking at this from the wrong perspective. MR’s April issue a couple of years back ran an article that described using hamsters to clean track in modeled subways. What you need to do is soak these dudes in alcohol and train them to do the belly crawl through your tunnels. could save you a lot of work in the long run.[(-D][(-D][(-D]
Ron
I can relate. My problem isn’t so much in the tunnels. The seem to like rollicking through my scenery, leaving their call cards everywhere. They apparently pushed in a back window on my roundhouse and now I have to remove the glued on roof to replace it. They also have set up shop in some storage boxes where I kept some structure kits. They chewed right through one of the kit boxes and set up a nest. I found a collection of pink insulation and dog food in the box. They like to rearrange the ground foam an lichen in my landscapes. Apparently they are critics as well. The last straw was when they tore the heck out of a really nice looking wooded area I had built with Woodland Scenics fine foliage. Broke every last tree off at the base. After that, it was no more mister nice guy. D-Con has been my weapon of choice but lately, the problem seems to be getting worse so I might add the old snap traps as well. A cat is not an option because I have two dogs who love cats. They think they are very tasty. Just a couple days ago I found one of the rodents laying dead on my layout in the middle of a residential street. It reminded me of a scene from a 1950s sci-fi movie in which radioactive rodents had mutated to enormous size. The only thing it lacked was the dubbing of English over the Japanese dialogue.
Shishkabob skewer! Sharpen a good stainless steel skewer and lash it down to the top of your fastest loco. Run loco through tunnels at top speed repeat as needed until train exits tunnels with empty skewer.
Are you absolutely sure??? I will be glad to rent him to you. Just a little kibble and an “atta boy” when he clears your tunnel system.
Use one of the old Tyco locos with that pancake drive. It’ll fly through the tunnels at mach 3 and if it gets wrecked in the process you haven’t lost anything.
Mark, is that the latest downloadable horn sound? Where can I get it? [{(-_-)}]
Amen. This is exactly what I do. I actually make it into a little “Mouse Safari”. The Victor Mouse Traps are the only way to go for me - instant kill, no dead mice crawling away to die, and you have an exact body count and can tell when you are making a dent in the mouse
Just remember to weather and decal for the appropriate era you are modeling. [swg]
Mice on a layout plus cats = BAD JUJU. Unless you are modeling a hurricane,tsunami or tornado stricken railroad, put this thought out of mind immediately.
Traps for living areas, poison ONLY in attics or crawls, and ONLY during cold months, or else the smell will drive you from your home.
Steel wool to close access points, or all you will do is strengthen and smarten the surviving Darwinian population.
During the transition to a rodent free environment, I would begin each operating session with a MOW unit, headed by a large front mounted flanger.
Looking forward to the video of the train/mouse encounter…[:D]
Will the LL ones work? I have about 4 of them left.
No problems with rats, my tine is only a foot long.
As for the Anoles 6 P2Ks pushing a custom-built plow shouold fix that, and the dog will keep them off the legs.
I have a 20 gauge with a 10 inch barrel if you would like to borrow it, you will probley want to re-do the scenery after that but there will be no more mouse or even a dead body to worry about. Mike