Hmmm...

[ibRAD]

Time to have a chat with the cat about household responsibilities I think.

Guess I found the problem. At least it didn't catch fire! Tasty epoxidized soybean oil! It's the good Japanese stuff too.

[jminer]

Oof - that's a damn mess!

[Boxer_4]

@ibrad Time to get some capsaicin tape

[aremmes]

@boxer_4 Preferably a jar of peanut butter and half a dozen of these.

[ibRAD]

@boxer_4 Thought about that, but that's a lot of wiring to wrap. The control box is actually pretty well sealed... except for some reason they left a hole big enough for a mouse on the backside. The front panel is steel, but the back is plastic. I'll probably fill the hole with steel wool and hope that they don't just chew around it. Maybe throw a few moth balls in too. Will have to replace several wires of course.

We had a planned power outage earlier this week and generally I wouldn't bother with the generator for a few hours, but I am working from home so I needed power for the computer. Everything seemed to be working fine, but for some reason I had no water (on a well) The 240V well pump is the only 240V circuit hooked up to the generator so everything else worked. For all I know it's been like that for years since I've never actually run the generator long enough to deplete the water pressure tank until this week. The meter on the front of the generator even shows it running at 240, but when I tested it, it was only putting out power on one of the hot wires instead of both of them.

I'd even made sure it started and was putting out power (by the meter) in the fall so I knew I was ready for winter! It totally wasn't a pain in the ass to get a 200lb generator back to the garage through the snow!

[Boxer_4]

@aremmes I’m partial to these still.

[aremmes]

@boxer_4 The classics still do a good job.

[ibRAD]

@aremmes that's a fancy mousetrap. Are they any better?

[ibRAD]

@boxer_4 Yeah, that's the kind I always get. And the large ones to keep the chipmunks in check.

[aremmes]

@ibrad They're much easier to set up than the classic Victor traps, have a very light trigger (so that they snap shut more easily), and are much less likely to sever a finger. The only downside is that they won't always kill the mouse, although it'll still exert enough force to prevent the mouse from breaking free.

[barnie]

@boxer_4 Me too. Have a dozen or so of these that Dad detuned. They snap but can't hurt even a mouse. When his cats would jump up on things they shouldn't, he'd set out a few. When the counter/table/bench bites back, cats don't jump on them... Sometimes we'd hear one snap and then a few more snap as the cat jumped around. Good giggle that was. No, no cats were ever harmed. I keep them like I do jacks as deck alarms. Barefeet on either will cause a surprised reaction.

[VincentMalamute]

@ibRAD said

Time to have a chat with the cat about household responsibilities I think.

Yup. Put that on the agenda for the next house meeting.

@ibrad said in Hmmm...:

@aremmes that's a fancy mousetrap. Are they any better?

I used to use @aremmes 's as well as the traditional ones. I've moved completely over to these

Stronger killing spring than @aremmes 's but I've had a few where only their leg got caught which is unfortunate.

Reusable. I know you can reuse the traditional but ugh. You can reuse @aremmes 's type too.

Nice bait pocket to put this in.