of mice and wire

[stickboy1375]

They also love making nests inside of outdoor lighting fixtures mounted on the ground. If there's room enough for an ant and a piece of dirt, sooner or later they will be filled with a colony of ants and a giant mud mess.

Exactly why I can't stand when people drill weep holes in bottom of boxes...:smile:

 

[brian john]

We have had numerous generators with substanial damage from mice. Eating wires leading to shorts, wiring harness damage, control card damage, expensive repairs. We always place rodent bait trays in all enclosures were we service generators and rodents might be an issue.

 

[problemsolver600]

Critters

Critters

This fall I inspected an old fire house for suitability for church youth use.

Wiring was in conduit, but the racoons burrowing had seperated the conduit from some boxes,loosened other boxes, and I won't mention what had to be cleaned out with the insulation so I could make the repairs.

A couple of years ago the power went out for a local apartment building because a squirrel tried to build a nest on the pole where the underground feed headed down the pole. Had a lot of fried squirrel as a kid, but passed on this one.

gary

 

[andy s.]

Brian,

I too, have had problems with mice eating away at the stators. My trick was to use a couple of boxes of mothballs (naptha) to get rid of them buggers. I had to swap over a 200KW stator myself and it wasn't fun.

 

[cowboyjwc]

Once went on a service call to a house that we had wired not long before. Since I kinda remebered how we had run the cable I couldn't figure out why some outlets had power and others didn't.

So I played detective and asked if they had hung any pictures on the wall? No. Anybody been in the attic? No. So I went up and poked around and could find the run, but nothing wrong with it. The HO asked what I was looking for and I told her, plus I said sometimes mice will chew on the wire if they get in the attic.

Finally told here that I would have to open up the wall and repull the cable into the attic to repair it as we must have pinched a wire in the wall. I popped the hole just above the box and there sat a fried mouse and a chewed through romex cable.

She was amazed that I knew that that's what the problem was and of course I didn't have the heart to tell here that it was a WAG.

 

[hockeyoligist2]

Brian,

I too, have had problems with mice eating away at the stators. My trick was to use a couple of boxes of mothballs (naptha) to get rid of them buggers. I had to swap over a 200KW stator myself and it wasn't fun.

I tried the mothball trick in a storage building I have. It didn't work for me. As soon as I finished building it I put a box of mothballs and some rat poison side by side then scattered moth balls around. Two days later I could see where the rats had been eating away on the poison! So I thought at least it will kill them. Then at Christmas, when I dug out the decorations... found a rat had chewed thru one of the plastic containers and made a nice little home!

 

[tallgirl]

I tried the mothball trick in a storage building I have. It didn't work for me. As soon as I finished building it I put a box of mothballs and some rat poison side by side then scattered moth balls around. Two days later I could see where the rats had been eating away on the poison! So I thought at least it will kill them. Then at Christmas, when I dug out the decorations... found a rat had chewed thru one of the plastic containers and made a nice little home!

Rat poison works. However, the failure to mention "rats" in tales about the birds and the bees doesn't mean that mommy and daddy rats don't have little baby rats, it just means that children aren't scared by learning about rats.

Moral of the story -- use poison early and often. That or get a cat.

She looks cute and cuddly (and she is!), but she's something else when it comes to killing rats. I've watched her, her brother and her mother kill rats. It's amazing.

 

[hockeyoligist2]

Rat poison works. However, the failure to mention "rats" in tales about the birds and the bees doesn't mean that mommy and daddy rats don't have little baby rats, it just means that children aren't scared by learning about rats.

Moral of the story -- use poison early and often. That or get a cat.

She looks cute and cuddly (and she is!), but she's something else when it comes to killing rats. I've watched her, her brother and her mother kill rats. It's amazing.

We have about 10 cats that hang around here they are too busy killing squirrels! I put new poison in once a month, they average eating a full box a month!, must just be too many rats! But what can I expect? I live in the woods!

 

[robertwilber]

I had a customer here who came home from a charitable mission after a two years absence.
His guest house had been completely shut down.
When power was restored, circuits started tripping.
Squirrels. Everywhere. Attic, walls, between floors. Amazing.
It looked like someone had strung bare copper through the building.
Practical rewire ... in MC cable instead of NM.