Replies

1. 
   kgregor4 | Jul 25, 2006 05:01am | #1

   A couple years ago I was hearing some strange noises from the basement. Of course only when I was upstairs. Never when I was down there to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from.

   Then one day I was down there and heard it again. And saw the cold air return trunkline was oilcanning as something walked through them. I could actually see the bottom moving as whatever it was passed by.

   Then an awakening, I hadn't seen the Cat in a few days.

   Yep, she'd managed to find her way inside the ductwork.

   Tore through the house (basement / 1st floor / 2nd floor / attic) and couldn't figure how in the heck she got in there.

   Called a friend over,  he looked things over and came to the same conclusion. So we disconnected and dropped a 12' section of the trunkline to get her out.

   And a couple days later did it all over again. And this time found an opening the metal benders had left on top of another section where they were using the joist cavity as the trunk.

   Sealed it up and all was well.

   Long story here to get to my suggestion: Set a hungry cat loose in your ducts.

2. 
   BUIC | Jul 25, 2006 05:12am | #2

     They could have gotten in thru any opening.

     More importantly, you don't want to poison them unless you want dead mice decaying inside your ducts.

      Try some plain old spring traps... Buic

1. 
   rpholland | Jul 25, 2006 04:06pm | #3

   Unfortunately that's how we first discovered the mice, at the start of the cooling season a bad smell from one of the air ducts.   I just need to get under the house and find where they are getting in.  Should I have an access panel in the main trunk where I could set some traps ?

   Rob

2. 
   Griff | Jul 25, 2006 04:34pm | #4

   A number of years ago I had a winter rental of a house (actually a barn converted to living quarters) in Westport, CT. Real ritzy town along the CT shoreline in Fairfield County - home of Paul Newman and other notables.

   After getting tired of our cat waking my wife an I up in the middle of the night chasing the sounds in the walls, I put down some D-Con poison containers. A few days later I found a huge dead animal on the earth floor of the basement. Big sucker.

   Called an exterminator cause it wasn't no field mouse. He said it was a field rat!

   He also said the D-Con poison is warfarin (same meds as blood thinners for people who have blood clots). It makes the animals bleed internally when they eat it. Once they start to bleed they feel chilly and seek out warmth so they come inside your house and get cooked on a heating duct or something similar.

   He put down what he said was poison that restricted their air passages. So, naturally, he claimed, they felt like they were suffocating and headed outdoors for fresh air and died outside. End of odor problem.

   Don't know if that's true - I've never found a poison that claims to act in that manner - but I didn't notice anymore dead animals in the house, no odor problems, and the number of creepy crawlers in the walls did decline significantly.

   Anyone else here heard of this? I'm overrun with mice in the crawl space under an addition and would love to get rid of them outdoors to avoid the odor. My last exterminator didn't know what I was talking about. But, whatever he used only produced a few dead animals on the floor of the crawl space and little odor.

   BTW, anyone know what I'm to use to seal up the joints of that addition (concrete wall to concrete wall and at the sill plate)? Expanding foam or caulk? What do rodents chew through to get inside? Or, what won't they chew through? Can't stuff steel wool in every crack.Griff

1. 
   edwardh1 | Jul 25, 2006 05:00pm | #5

   they may be trying to get to dog or cat food inside the house. seal those up and put out traps.

3. 
   rez | Jul 25, 2006 09:45pm | #6

   If you want to clean the insides of yer ducts there is a mouse size contraption on the end of an air hose some ductclean companies use.

   The air from the hose enters the mouse thing which has air ports exiting to the back towards the hose which in addition to loosening the dustcrud, propels it thru the ducts. A vacuum hose is positioned directly in back of it gathering the debri.

   be breathing a rodent skeleton

   
   

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   Edited 7/25/2006 2:48 pm ET by rez