This Old #%&@*$ House

If you get those don't test them out. Got a pair and both were one time use before the mechanism broke. 0/2 on catching anything

Hard to beat the good old fashioned Victor. If we didn't have a murder kitty in the house, this is what I'd be using.

IMAGE(https://images.homedepot-static.com/productImages/f4f504b1-ed81-41a5-aec0-0a91c3e08ada/svn/victor-animal-rodent-control-m154w-64_1000.jpg)

Enix wrote:

I swear by these things:

IMAGE(https://www.tomcatbrand.com/sites/g/files/oydgjc146/files/asset_images/Press%20N%20Set.png)

Hmm. It doesn't say anything about bluetooth or WiFi connectivity? How is one to know that it's killed something? At the very least it should connect to my Apple Home or give me an Alexa alert.

January is a bad month for your heater to die.

I’ve spent the last 4 days rolling around in the dirt in our crawl space putting insulation up under the floor. The previous owner never put down a vapor barrier on the ground and just used the pink fiberglass, so everything had either rotted and fallen down or become home for a variety of critters. Pulling all that down was not fun.

Thankfully the vapor barrier directly against the floor was relatively intact, so I just put up some mineral wool batts between the joists and screwed in some compressed mineral wool boards underneath the joists themselves. Allegedly, because the stuff is made out of rock and slag fibers it doesn’t suffer if it gets damp and is vapor permeable. The only thing I’m really worried about is critters getting in again, but the boards are pretty firm so hopefully we’ll be ok.

WellAdjusted wrote:

I’ve spent the last 4 days rolling around in the dirt in our crawl space putting insulation up under the floor. The previous owner never put down a vapor barrier on the ground and just used the pink fiberglass, so everything had either rotted and fallen down or become home for a variety of critters. Pulling all that down was not fun.

Thankfully the vapor barrier directly against the floor was relatively intact, so I just put up some mineral wool batts between the joists and screwed in some compressed mineral wool boards underneath the joists themselves. Allegedly, because the stuff is made out of rock and slag fibers it doesn’t suffer if it gets damp and is vapor permeable. The only thing I’m really worried about is critters getting in again, but the boards are pretty firm so hopefully we’ll be ok.

Gross work to have to do, but a good thing to get done before it damaged the floor.

firesloth wrote:

How is one to know that it's killed something?

You'll hear the SNAP from upstairs. It's a surprisingly satisfying sound.

oilypenguin wrote:

January is a bad month for your heater to die.

That bites. What happened? Mine had a whole set of issues past couple weeks.

Oh I got way lucky. The sensor that tells if there’s flame was corroded. A little bit of sand paper and we’re back in business. Guy taught me how to check it so I’m going to clean the thing annually now. Had him give the rest of my 30 year old furnace a quick going over too.

Is this the place to talk emergency preparedness? I feel like that's pretty specific and not just about the home. I'm not looking to go full-on Doomsday Prepper, but I do want to get more serious about how to ride out a major disaster. If no, am happy to start one.

Search function didn't turn anything up but you all are way better at Internets than me.

I demand that you turn this into the prepping thread.

NSMike wrote:

Hard to beat the good old fashioned Victor. If we didn't have a murder kitty in the house, this is what I'd be using.

IMAGE(https://images.homedepot-static.com/productImages/f4f504b1-ed81-41a5-aec0-0a91c3e08ada/svn/victor-animal-rodent-control-m154w-64_1000.jpg)

I bought these a couple months ago when we found mice had gotten into a bag of flour on a lower shelf in the pantry.

They caught one bigger mouse and one smaller one, and after that they caught nothing. All four traps got cleaned off completely four times in four days.

So we went... even lower tech. We put a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels balanced on the edge of the shelf the mice were getting up to, put peanut butter at the end hanging out over the edge, and put a fairly deep garbage can under it. Twice it took less than ten minutes to catch a mouse.

We caught six mice in two days.

Dumped them out in a field near the big local park.

Haven't seen one since.

I had a similar expeience with balance traps, caught 2 or 3, then they figured it out and it was just clean every morning. i have had the most repeatable success with this (16 mice over two seasons):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...

IMAGE(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51c9l3xb1EL._SX466_.jpg)

Top_Shelf wrote:

Is this the place to talk emergency preparedness? I feel like that's pretty specific and not just about the home. I'm not looking to go full-on Doomsday Prepper, but I do want to get more serious about how to ride out a major disaster. If no, am happy to start one.

Search function didn't turn anything up but you all are way better at Internets than me.

My disaster preparedness involves:

40 gallons of water (8 x 5 gal jugs) stored in the basement, changed out every six months. You're looking at a gallon/day/person, so for my family of three, that'll keep us going for about two weeks. Beyond that, I have a water filter that I use for backcountry camping, but is also my backup plan for when the 40 gallons runs out. There's a lake fed by a creek a 5 minute walk from my house and I have a hand-pull wagon that I can haul the filtered water back up the hill in.

The kind of dry/canned goods inventory that is a side-effect of a Costco membership. We could live for several weeks off the stuff we keep on hand anyway. It wouldn't be a healthy diet in the long term, but that's fine for emergencies.

Spare jerry can of gasoline stashed in the shed, notionally for the lawnmower, but can top up the car in the pinch. Change that out at least annually.

Spare full propane tank for the grill, so we can cook if the electric goes out. Also have camping stoves with smaller propane tanks.

sh*t-ton of batteries, a bevy of tiny flashlights. One USB powerpack that's kept charged - will give a single phone charge.

Offsite backup of my PC hard drive. Most important facet of this is that we don't lose all our photos in the case of a disaster.

There's some irony in having all this stuff stashed inside my house, when the big emergency we're realistically prepped for is a big f*ck-off earthquake, which might make the house fall down anyway.

Got our first offer on our house that's been on the market since July. Not-unexpectedly it was lower than is ideal, but it's exciting to finally get some concrete interest!!

We're now happily negotiating with them. We only had one neighbor there, and we adored her. She's like another grandmother to our boys. The offer comes from a family that she's friends with already, so we'd like to see them end up there.

Man, it'll be nice to not be paying two mortgages!!

This is all I need for prepping!

IMAGE(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BAuCYo22L._SL1000_.jpg)

https://www.amazon.com/SOG-Tactical-...

Very much kidding, since I don't want to starve to death, but apparently this is one of the better Tactial Tomahawks made right now.

tacticool!

Top_Shelf wrote:

Is this the place to talk emergency preparedness? I feel like that's pretty specific and not just about the home. I'm not looking to go full-on Doomsday Prepper, but I do want to get more serious about how to ride out a major disaster. If no, am happy to start one.

I hope you give all of us a head's up if you start a major disaster. Please.

-BEP

I went up to the attic to check on something and saw a huge space up there. Now I am dreaming of finishing the attic. Pretty rare up here in MN but I have always wanted to do something with an attic.

Well this is definitely the week to start an attic project.

I keep asking her why we stay in Minnesota and her response is usually, our families(except her parents and brother both moved south), our jobs and responsibilities. Though this year when I asked her reponse was, well if we scrimp and save enough money, we can buy a shack in Hawaii....

Hope everyone's heaters have evolved into Charizard if you have a Charmander or Charmeleon good luck.

I will say I am excited to watch the heat death of the universe localized to our state.

Hehe -33c feels like -44c. The doors on my house are freezing shut; I had to use both hands to pull the door open, this morning.

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

Hehe -33c feels like -44c. The doors on my house are freezing shut; I had to use both hands to pull the door open, this morning.

Tonight I have a concert I am going to in town and my wife sent me the forecast for it...-30 deg F, feels like -68 deg F....Great....Granted, I think the show will be worth it

Hobear, hope you stayed warm. We lost power at 545pm and it was finally fixed at 936 PM. Dropped to 61 from 72, 11 degrees in 4 hours, not bad since the house is 60 years old and its -50 with windchill right now.

We did, glad you're ok. My wife texted me that places were losing power, that was crazy! Show was great I brought along my snow emergency outfit! overkill but thankfully didn't need it.

Yah, was worried we would have to deal with burst pipes after all the issues with plumbing leaks we have had to deal with since we moved in. Glad it was restored when it was. They were saying on the news this morning there was still 1500 homes without power.

Homes without power in this weather is really scary. DO homes in your areas generally have fireplaces or wood stoves for supplement heating?

I'm finding my townhome can get a bit chilly the couple times it drops down in the teens, but that's mainly because I just turn the heat off at night and pile blankets on the bed.

thrawn82 wrote:

Homes without power in this weather is really scary. DO homes in your areas generally have fireplaces or wood stoves for supplement heating?

I'm finding my townhome can get a bit chilly the couple times it drops down in the teens, but that's mainly because I just turn the heat off at night and pile blankets on the bed.

I live two towns over.
Not the newer ones. But older ones might or especially people further north.
I have a gas fireplace but I doubt that would work if I lost power.
I'm so glad we didn't have that happen to us yet.
Just some loss of internet. Which as you know if the worst possible outcome.