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How To Keep Rats From Eating My Cables?
An anonymous reader writes "I am curious to know what vermin prevention/eradication methods are used in other locations. I am working at a dealership and we have an exterminator man who puts out glue traps and bait stations, but they still come and eat my cable. The latest was a couple of fiber runs — very expensive. I have threatened my boss with a cat for the server room (my office), going so far as to cruise the local Humane Society's website and eye-balling a nice Ragdoll-Siamese mix. Even if I do feel like dealing with a litter box, cat hair in the equipment and pouncings on my keyboards (and I'm not sure I do), that only covers the server room. We have multiple buildings on the campus which get locked up to prevent theft, but it isn't secure enough to keep out the critters and the latest chew spot was in the ceiling. Any ideas?"
Rats and mice don't eat cables...They chew the insulation off to make their nests...or if it happens to be in their way. So your best be it to figure out what the hell they're eating, and shut down their food supply. They'll move on shortly thereafter.
The word "campus" may put paid to that notion, however. Campus implies lots of people, lots of garbage, and lots of space. God help you if it's a college campus, the promised land of vermin the world over, where bulldog sized rats subsist on half a cheeseburger out of the dumpster. If that's the case, then there is no way you'll be able to shut off their food.
Introducing predators isn't necessarily a bad idea, but its a measure that can, in no way, co-exist with traditional methods of poison and trapping. Your predator will likely set off the traps and poison itself on the bioaccumulated toxins in the bodies of its prey. If you do get a cat, better feed it a bunch of activated charcoal with its kibble.
Which brings us to poison and trapping. It's not that they don't work. They work GREAT. If they're not working, it means you're not using enough. You need to come to the budgetary equilibrium where the amount you spend on extermination makes sense based on the cost of cable replacement.
So if you can't shut off their food, and you can't stomach the thought of your kitties/ferrets/snakes keeling over dead from poison every month or two, you're going to have to up the extermination.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
No, wait, that's the wrong movie...
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
And if you can't "afford" conduit, make your own. Garden hose (which rats don't eat through), PVC, etc.
... oh wait
Cats have been used to deal with vermin for so many generations that we've forgotten. With the exception of the Black Death misunderstanding (where we killed the witch-cats and thus eliminated any hope of naturally controlling the vermin which were spreading the disease), this relationship has been quite satisfactory.
If your exterminator can't do the job, then hire another exterminator. Trying to eliminate modes of entry into the server room for the vermin is also an idea.
But ultimately, there's nothing wrong with getting a few cats to patrol your campus.
or, was that too obvious?
you could always go back to old style 10baseT 'thickwire' cabling. I'd like to see ANY rodent chew threw that! plus, the vampire taps might scare the mice away..
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Cats have been used widely to get rid of rats and mice since the beginning of time. perhaps you should get some of those ?
Rat Poison.
Yeah, this is "inhumane" etc, whatever. But that's the only way to reduce the population fast enough to make a difference. Most pest control people want to use poisons, because they know it's the only way that works, but then people insist "omg no! you have to be humane about it!"
Look people. If you want the pests gone, there's really only one option that works.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
*glances at the article below this one*
One of the editors couldn't wait to put these two together, could they?
You can get armored cable. It is designed specifically for this problem. Our telephone company laid a lot of fiber (underground). Within a month the fiber stopped working. They dug it up, found gophers had chewed through the fiber. They re-laid the fiber, the second time it was armored.
there's a breed called the rat terrier, not as common as it once was, but probably other terriers could do for this work. Possibly you can deal better with typical dog behaviors better than cat behaviors.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
You can get this at any hardware or garden store. Basically it is just a spray bottle full of capsaicin, which is what gives chili peppers their kick. It is commonly sold as rabbit or deer repellent sprays. Aviaries, which have huge rodent problems, will mix hot pepper powder in with bird seed because birds are not affected by it, but the rodents won't touch the seeds then. But a warning - DO NOT get this on your eyes or hands and apply it to the cables in a well ventilated area or outside. And if you put it on cables, you need to wear gloves in the future when handling them.
A couple of Ball pythons in the cable runs, and those rats will be history as will anybody poking around where they're not supposed to...
I think the best option is to leave them CAT 5 offerings every afternoon.
Well, you could always introduce some sort of lizards to eat the rats. And then, after the lizard population explodes you could...uh, well, I'm not sure of the exact steps, but I think it all ends up with gorillas freezing to death in the winter. Or something like that.
Mice are five times more afraid of it.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Class 5 laser cannons in the ceilings.
Mount their little heads on spikes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
Use high voltage cables and let evolution do the rest.
There HAS to be a reason why cables are usually put in conduits and/or PVC pipes. If you have bare cables lying around, you're asking for trouble.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There are those weird things you plug into the wall outlets that deters rats by making some noise at a frequency that irritates them so they leave. Don't know how well it works, but might be worth a shot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Willard_1971.jpg
I know this is a strange concept, but there is this stuff called conduit. You know, that metal tube stuff that has been used in buildings for eons. That stuff that you run wire through.
It is available in both flex and solid. You can bet all *MY* fiber runs are in steel conduit (even though all my wire stuff is not).
BTW- I like the word "stuff".
Get rid of their food source and they'll move on. Get a garbage dumpster with lids that seal. Remove trash bags from the trash every night. Vacuum the carpets every night (and tell the slob who eats at his desk to eat somewhere that the crumbs can be swept up). No food in the cupboards unless it's in jars or cans. No birdfeeder outside. And so on - use your imagination. There is no solution apart from this one, and it has to be building-wide. If there is food for them, they will return.
And glue traps are incredibly cruel; other killing traps almost as much so. Live-trap them and drive them (a few miles or more) to someplace green without buildings around, make them work for a living.
The short-term solution is probably one layer of spiral cable wrap, topped with another layer of split-flex tubing.
G'day there,
I work for a large University here in Australia - We have rats the size of your propsed cat around here - the food and water sources far exceed my capability to erradicate them. We have started installing SWA electrical cable between buildings, through our walkthrough inter-building tunnels.
For data cables, I've been placing the cable in a way that makes it hard for the rats to get purchase whilst shreading the cable. The cables sit supported on the cable tray by about 2ft, or suspended from a catenary wire off the tunnels roof.
For in-building installations, We have pretty much done the same - catenary wires support the cable bundles and the fibre is encased in flexi-duct.
We get 2 or 3 cable shreads per year, the last one was a 192 core cable that the little buggers cut and ripped so badly I had to replace 40M of line before it was able to be respliced.
I feel your pain..
One of the great reasons why wireless networking and phone technology is popular in Africa is that the copper thieves can't steal the wires. One area I visited often, many years back, had a 25 mile long telephone cable to a phone that never worked. By the time the installation crew finished the installation the first half of the line would be gone and they'd wait for the next year's budget and start all over again...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
in a block of amethyst.
Or, you could make the room an insulated compartment, like on a ship. You'll need knee-knockers type doors. That is, pseudo air/watertight doors openings cut into the plate of the compartment. The rats shouldn't be able to climb or jump over the coaming. Wait, if they are genetically endowed, they just MIGHT leap 8 inches up.... i've had indications they were able to leap over stickies i laid down, so i had to lay extras in their landing path. That worked.
As for the cabling, you need stuffing tubes or solid stuffing and jacketing around the cabling. If it's all sufficiently high with nothing for them to claw up the walls with, then hopefully they won't get in.
If you have discretionary funding, you might want to get laser sweeps (the kind that take dimensions to measure tanks or large spaces) or something based on alarms (not talking about zapping them... if you cook them, it'll be messy as hell to clean up...). Tie it in with inert gas. I don't know that you could trip Halon without corroding the wires, destroying your gear, and being a potential life-safety issue, but some gas might be available for use after hours. Set it up so that during work hours, the delivery mechanism or discharge hose port is disengaged, and when you close up shop, shut the door and the safety tags drop into view as the attachments seal and are on stand-by. During working hours, have screens in place that they can't negotiate.
But, that's expensive. It may be cheaper to encase the servers and put stickies in perimeter defense of the equipment, but, it sounds like you tried that.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I read somewhere that cat fur alone can be a deterrent to rodents. Something about the scent...
Cat's shed a lot. Find someone with a cat and spread the shedding around the problem areas. If it works, great. If not, it didn't cost you anything... you know, except more cable
Is it the last stand and the final gasp of RIAA lawyers trying to stop the downloads. What? you mean REAL rats? oops.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
All the cool nerds have them now. Not only will they protect your precious cables but they'll use your connection to upload pictures of themselves doing cute things, raising your geek cred.
Cats = decapitated rotting carcasses.
If you want to help the economy, waste your money on some kind of pest management regime including exterminators and poisons.
If you want to help the Human Society, adopt a cat. Just hope you adopt one that is too dumb to realize that hunting rats is a hassle compared to dumpster diving or finding a soft-touch to feed it Fancy Feast every day.
The best way to get rid of rodents is to prevent them from entering your building(s). Period.
Ok, that might be dangerous. How about you run a few more cables with the others and hook up some 110volts on it. I'd suggest using a red/orange/yellow cable and mark it on both ends. I'd also advise against putting regular ends on it. It probably wouldn't be good if someone plugged that into a switch. Just run a really long red ethernet cable, and put a lamp on the end of it ;)
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
get a Sphynx! part of the problem solved.
stop all streaming video of "ratatouille" and blog posts of rat porn, and start serving up content that rats don't like. introduce random packets of lolcat jppegs, maybe streaming video of "mrs frisby and the rats of nimh". you'll soon find the rats aren't as interested anymore at chewing into your cables to get to the content on your network, as they will find it unappealing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I had heard before that hot peppers were used to coat cables, since rodents apparently hate it. A quick google gave me this: this.
eye-balling a nice Ragdoll-Siamese mix
Cats can also chew on wires. My Ragamuffin (related to the Ragdoll breed) as a kitten chewed through an AM antenna wire for my stereo and still chews on some of the plastic sheaths around cat-5 cabling in the house.
If you're going to let a cat roam around a noisy air-conditioned machine room, it may be humane to get one that is already naturally deaf, though that will likely impact its ability to hunt light-footed vermin or alert you with its meowing, and it may take to knocking items onto the floor to get your attention. (Make sure it can't reach let alone operate the scram switch.)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
featured a robot cat. There were some problems for sure, but the technology must have improved since the 40s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV4kYuTZ02A> Perhaps Roomba has one now.
Nullius in verba
.22 air rifle, 3 Beers and 2 cans of Redbull. Make a night of it.
I'd say we nuke them from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
Electrified sheathing around your insulated cables, surrounded by a layer of duct tape. Make sure the floor is grounded. One or two nibbles is all it takes.
If you can't control the rat population, why can't you work on rat-proofing the cables, i.e., putting them in steel conduit? Am I missing something obvious, like regulatory considerations? Surely protecting the cables once and for all would be cheaper than frequently replacing them plus working on population control?
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
one is a coating for the cabling to "discourage" chewing.
popular choices are anything capsaicin based or something with a bitter substance (bitter to rodents that is)
another is those ultra-sonic repellers (it's worth a try....some rats may not give a "rat's" ass about it and still continue to do their deeds)
In the end, it may not be just one thing but a combination of things.
poisons to kill off the rats, deterrents to prevent them from chewing on cabling, and making it very unpleasant for them to live on the lot.
Especially, yanking out the welcome mat from under them.
Those rats who don't learn not to leave and not to chew on the cables will get poisoned.
USB Missle Launcher. http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/8bc4/
My basement door doesn't exactly seal right (my goal this year is to replace it) and we used to have mice coming into the basement all the time.
The fix was to get one of those high-frequency boxes you plug in and clicks every now and then. Ever since I put one near that door, we haven't had a mouse problem.
Second thought. If you do decide to use snap traps or glue traps, be sure to use peanut butter instead of cheese. Cheese dries out too quickly and they never eat it. PB stays good for a long time.
Third thought (yea I said two, here's a bonus). The very popular anticoagulant called Warfarin (AKA Coumadin) was originally used as rat poison.
Clearly, you need to deploy one or more Rat Zapper Battle Stations
They work great. Rats die humanely. Things that eat rats, don't.
I mean to say, things that eat them don't die, not that they die horrible, lingering deaths.
Well, of course they will die, eventually. But not from this.
I mean, unless they're other rats.
The standard has always been armored cable..
Every manufacturer offers it. In the meantime, set out bowls of automobile antifreeze for the rats to drink (but it won't work in California -- bitter taste added to antifreeze).
Case closed
What about some of those supersonic things? Supposedly they emit a sound or something that keeps certain pests at bay
Most modern poisons have diuretics that literally make the mouse/rat/cat get thirsty. This typically makes them go outside in search of water, where they then buy the farm. However, if they don't make it outside, be prepared to endure the stench of a rotting animal(s) for a few weeks.
Dress for success AND excess.
boas, pythons, owls, hawks, monitor lizards, ...
I mean a python crawling in the ceiling eating mice while your coding python.
How cool would that be ?
Absolute statements are never true
Activate the Halon fire suppression system and run ...
Alternatively, simply adding a bunch of dry ice in an enclosed space below floor level will likely clear out any living organisms too. Be careful that you don't suffocate too.
Finally, there is always the old cyanide gas trick ... No need to worry about suffocation with cyanide.
Eat the rats before they eat the cables!
This, baited with peanut butter, is irresistible death. Place one at known rat entrances or run ways. I could catch dumb rats within an hour of placing the trap. Some smart rats took a day or two to give in to the temptation. Also, eliminate any other sources of food. A fat rat is an unmotivated rat. There is no blood, nobody dying in your walls.
Have you considered Laser Cats?
Whatever you do, poison should be the LAST option. Rats die wherever they happen to be when the poison kicks in, and that's usually someplace dark and inaccessable like inside walls, air ducting, or insulation. You generally are not aware of the corpses until they start rotting and filling up with maggots.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
cayenne pepper, etcetc.
something that won't spoil and stink, is nonlethal, and non-appetizing to rats. get a rag and fill it full of the stuff, then wipe down your cables.
Capsaicin is an effective rodent repellant -- it's great for keeping squirrels from eating the bird seed -- so you might try painting the wiring with Tabasco® sauce. There's actually a wildlife (mammal) repellent called Hot Sauce® available.
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You will have a hard time finding their corpse after they die, and they won't smell so good :)
Used this with my dog; get some Tobasco sauce and LATHER it on the cables. Works like a charm ;)
And if you do choose a cat, and they keel over, you can have some networking-fun naming them. The first cat will be CAT1, then CAT2, CATN, to CAT5, etc.
Have you considered dressing up as a minstrel and playing some music? Apparently, that's worked before.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
I used to work on subway, where rodents are a serious problem. It seems like 60 Hz actually excite this animals making them byte the cables.Fortunately, several companies makes "Rodent Proof" cables in a combination of Coax shield & bad taste.
Put the poison directly on the cable.
If they eat it --> good, that was their last dinner.
If they don't eat it --> good, your cables are protected.
Just don't lick the cable!
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Had the same problem in a feed mill. I used steel conduit and stuffed the fiber junction boxes with steel wool.
That cat idea may not work.
I spent some time in Alabama and have a clear recollection of seeing the phone company out to paint some kind of substance on the above-ground wires. It seems that the red squirrels in that area like to chew on the insulation, and this causes problems. I asked the foreman if the stuff was poisonous, and he replied no. "It just burns the hell out of their little feet." Don't know what the stuff was or if it would be suitable for indoor cables.
I also agree that you need to talk management into expanding your exterminating budget. Rats are unhealthy for the human inhabitants of your facility.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
These are just regular sized cats with no ninja training.
Rats will happily rip a hole through drywall so don't really care if you block up holes. I blocked up some holes with chew-proof material and the bastards just ripped another hole.
If you have rats inside, then the chances are that they are an overflow population from somewhere else. We didn't have rats in the house until the population built up in the barn and the "turf wars" pushed some of the rats into the house. As soon as we killed a lot of the rats in the barn they disappeared from the house.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
syrup of ipecac- i have been told that Rodents have no gag reflex (this comes from a man who works with them daily) and they will choke on there own vomit. bait some food and lace it with that stuff.
You were probably kidding, but I'd like to point out that our local humane society has rules against adopting out animals for the purpose of pest management or hunting.
Rat poison isn't that efficient.
Rats are able to learn. They'll end up learning that said poison is poisonous to them. (That's why lot of modern poison have very delayed effect. So that it's harder for the rat to make the connection and learn what's killing them).
Bio-accumulation : predators higher up in the food chain are going to diet on poison-rich rats, and thus are going to poison themselves through their food.
By using rat poison, not only are you (attempting to) kill rats. But there's a high risk that you'll be killing the neighbors' cats, snakes, ferrets, etc.
On the other hands, predators have been considered efficient and used successfully for the past millenia.
So getting several cats *could* be a solution.
A couple of caveat :
- Cut the rat poison first, otherwise kitty is going to get poisoned. (or at least get advices from a vet on how to protect kitty).
- Get a grown up cat. One that has already learned to use the litter box, has already learned to hunt, etc.
- When getting a cat, get one who has grown up outdoor and is used to hunting. Avoid the overweighted, indoor, constantly drooling and sleeping type.
- Prefer shorter hair : they are simpler to take care of, tend less to puke hair balls, and tend to leave less hair around.
None the less, try to secure and isolate the server cabinet with proper dust filters. Other wise you might have to often vacuum your server's radiators. (Anyway, the filters will be good against dust bunnies too).
- Depending on the size of the territory to cover. Adding a couple more cats might help, if you can manage to handle them all.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Starvation is already out, you said as much.
The other side of this being a campus means the vulnerabilities are spread far and wide, and in separate secured environments. Pets cannot cover this, unless we're talking about locking one cat/snake/terrier in each network closet.
If the cable runs in the walls/ceilings are not already protected (conduit), this is not a viable fix on a large site. That means that even WITH predators, unless they are released into the ceiling (and become a nuisance themselves), you have no means of protecting those cable runs.
Professional extermination is the only way to go for unseating vermin that infest a large, or just largely inaccessible, territory.
I'm sure the rats feel nervous about leaving the sanctuary of their hidey holes and walls to get to the cabling. Why not load in a few miles of old cabling into the walls so they can eat it there and not have to come out? :)
# Erik
If you've got that much of a rat problem ... get some metal conduit and run your cables in that. Splice boxes can be anything.- keep'em suspended in the middle of the room or cover with glue.
But you've got more of a food problem than anything- the rats won't stick around without a food supply and it sounds like they like what you're serving there.
If all else ... just start putting down rat poison everywhere outside. It'll take your squirrels out too....
1. Aluminum foil
2. Alligator clips
3. Car battery
4. Air freshener
Cats are soft and useless creatues no if you want to get rid of the rats call the PETA and tell them your running a rehabilitation home for freshly freed mink those are vicius and evil creature thats going to rid you of the rats within the week.
I once saw a rat run into my garage, and I had heard that cat urine would make them leave so I scooped some used clay litter into a bucket and put it into the garage. I went back the next day and THE RAT HAD EATEN THE FUCKING LITTER!
Rats are real badasses.
I haven't read all of the replies either, but my recommendation is not to try and fight the rats, put your cable in metal conduit and be done with it. It's a proven method, and you only have to pay for it once. Just my $0.02 worth...
Get a cat and don't feed it. Keep it inside so that it doesn't eat local wildlife. Give it a bowl of milk every day.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
Put the cables in steel conduit..
I was able to import an Australian Black Mambo snake to our Condominium complex. Let me tell you, no rodent has seen the light of day since.
Now mind you the community is on pins and needles, but believe me nobody is talking about rodents at the HOA meetings.
Have you tried marrying the rat, then demanding every night when you get into bed that the rat "chew on my cable"? I don't know how effective this is with rats, but it worked really well with my wife -- she won't even go near my "cable" anymore!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
There are cables with the plastic insulation mixed with denatonium benzoate and/or capsaicin that acts as a nice deterrent. Denatonium benzoate is a synthetic substance that is extremely bitter and capsaicin is the pure form of the chemical that makes hot peppers hot. Some info here: http://www.ideamarketers.com/?Protecting_wires,_cables_and_pipes_from_animals_without_harming_them_&articleid=438050
I've had fine results with commercial remedies. Be sure you check the traps often, you don't want to have rodents rotting in your building any longer than necessary.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Stop networking with cheese strings and it should solve the problem.
Spray Q20 on the cables. I've also heard that a mixture of peanut-butter & cement make a pretty effective non-systemic rodent-killer. That failing; a cat works pretty well
Cats! As many as you need, both male and female, so they can procreate... and if you have mice enough you don't even have to bother to feed them ;-)
As for the locked doors, why don't embbed smaller ones for the kitten?
I had a cloth pad woven with fine copper wire and when an animal walks on it they get a sizable zap. Trained the cat to stay out of the crib before the baby came.
Douse the cables in rat poison.
Don't want a lot of cat hair, but want a deterrent? Use a little cat poo, urine, and a smidge of hair here and there... It might scare the little buggers to someone else's server room.
which ones are bigger? mice? or rats?
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Unfortunately, in most places, low voltage does not require installation in conduit. This however does not mean you shouldn't. There are a few ways to save money installing conduit, but the short answer to your question is steel and mule tape. 1/2" - 3/4" for horizontal fiber and 3" for vertical.
Landmines.
The shameless wireless lobby has stooped to an all-time low.
How much longer must we face tyranny and unjust prosecution in this, the Obama era?
-A.Rat
If you think
Rats can go right through concrete.
You should look at ruggedized stainless steel fiber for you expensive short haul fiber and maybe switch to air gap laser or MMDS wireless for long haul or switch it around.
Both of those are rat proof. check it out http://www.timbercon.com/SS-Cables/index.html
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
Snakes are much more efficient predators, don't jump up on keyboards, don't shed fur, don't provoke allergies, don't need a litterbox, don't leave their kill for their master to find and don't demand attention. Of course, too many people are absurdly scared of the legless reptiles, but then they won't go into the server room and bug you either so even that downside is an upside.
The only real downside is that snakes don't purr.
Rats will squeeze through most any opening. Physical barriers are almost pointless.
And they gnaw constantly, as their teeth grow constantly as well.
If you are located in the North, they may have moved indoors. Driving them out into the frozen wastes will be difficult, as they aren't that stupid.
Steel wool is an excellent deterrent, it drives them C-R-A-Z-Y when it gets in their teeth. Eliminating the food supply is paramount, but usually the most difficult thing. Poison is as good a solution as anything.
Traps should be kill traps, but the bait is important. Does peanut butter work for rats as well as it does for red squirrels? Set the traps along walls, near potential openings, places where people are not during off hours. Service them regularly. I don't think rats mind seeing their friends dead in traps, they just learn from the experience. Red squirrels, OTOH, move pretty quickly when they see dead ones.
If you decide to get an active deterrent, dogs are the best, but no one breeds hunting Rat Terriers anymore. Shame, they are really good.
Ultimately, though, unless you remove the food supply, you will probably lose. The rats are really good.
If only you could let a snake loose in there... You could sell tickets. :)
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
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We don't have that problem here in the US. That's because we consolidate all our thieves in a small square district sandwiched between Virginia and Maryland. Unfortunately, that causes other problems.
I've had success with an electronic rat zapper in my attic. You want to use peanut butter and not cheese, though. I don't like the sticky traps. For one they tend to leave a big mess, and two I've watched rats escape from them. The problem with live traps is that once a rat has been caught by one it likely won't be caught a second time.
I'm getting tired of always having to go up there and check it, though, so I'm investigating getting something like this. I just wish they were not so expensive. The cheaper ones I've seen have a limited bulb life though.
The ultrasonic repellant devices don't work very well since the rats acclimate after several days and ignore them.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
And glue traps are incredibly cruel; other killing traps almost as much so. Live-trap them and drive them (a few miles or more) to someplace green without buildings around, make them work for a living.
I tried using a live trap for rats. Out of a dozen or so, I only managed to snag 2. I reluctantly ended up having to use the crush-their-skulls version for the rest. It's bad enough when the trap kills them. It's really gruesome when it only partly kills them and I have to finish the job.
Two products I've had great results with:
Rat Zapper http://ratzapper.com/
and if you go to your local pet store they'll have Bitter Apple, you might try spraying this on your cables.
Phostoxin will definitely kill your rats. Though I doubt your average pest control would have access to it, since it is quite deadly.
WD-40
Spray WD-40 into absorbent rag. Rub rag on cable sheath.
Vermin do not seem to think of WD-40 as an appropriate condiment on PVC.
If you can't get to the cable, however, you are horked; you should have followed correct practices and placed your cables in conduit or innerduct. ...and that's why you don't go for the cheapest cabling company or DIY.
Stop eating pizza in the server room.
Seriously, if they come, that's because they're finding food there. Keep it clean, and maybe they'll go away.
They also like the dark, so keeping the lights on can help. Search where they may be nesting.
factor 966971: 966971
better yet... you could try and find a recipe for rat stew.... yum! yum!
If you cannot find one... you can always ask the director of Demolition Man for their recipe.
Q. But what can we do to get rid of the cats when they overrun the 'campus?
A. We'll throw in a dog to chase them out
Q. But what about when the dog gets comfy behind the computers and gets fed by all the public, how will you get rid of him and the doggy friends that will follow?
A. Easy! We'll send in a bear to scare off the dogs.
Q. oookkkkaaayyy, but what about the bears?
A. Oh thats the real beauty of the plan. We invite hunters in to track and kill the bear. This also attracts customers! Win win.
You want big cat piss. This is the best deterrent I've found. It smells really bad though. Trade-offs. Effective, inexpensive, no-smell. Pick any two.
I have/had a similar set of problems.
1. I've owned pet rats and know what they can eat.
2. I currently own house rabbits.
3. I have a recurring mouse problem.
So lemme sum up. A rabbit can eat through a 14 gauge stranded copper cord of the sort you'd use for your refrigerator. Guess how I figured that out? Since it's starting at one side it doesn't ever cross both the live and neutral, so it doesn't get electrocuted. It can eat every cord off the back of a computer in under three minutes. Guess how I figured that out? A rat doesn't have quite the toothy abilities of a rabbit but it's fairly close. They can certainly cut through thin copper.
Neither the rabbits nor the rats -- nor my dog -- have been bothered by sprays intended to keep animals from digging/chewing on things. The super hot pepper-derived stuff stopped the rabbits but not the rats, and my dog loves the stuff. The sour/bitter stuff didn't slow any of them down even slightly.
Plastic split conduit doesn't even slow them down. Even when soaked in bitter or hot do-not-chew stuff.
Rats can chew through the side of a lead pipe and crawl through a hole the size of a US quarter. I don't have evidence that they can chew through copper pipe but I wouldn't be surprised.
Reducing food doesn't work. Once they're established, you can't keep the place clean enough. I have no idea how wild mice manage to find nutrition but they do. We keep all our food in sealed containers and vacuum and roomba every other day, and neither the dog nor the sometimes cat deter the mice in the slightest. The mice do, however, drive the dog and the cat completely insane, so if you want to have your predator madly clawing at the wall where it can either hear or smell a mouse, go for it. Both dogs and clawed cats can dig through standard drywall, and then you have a repair to do. (and they remember it and keep trying. Pitbulls are very, very retentive dogs and she'll dig through 12mm thick plywood to get to where she remembers a mouse or rat or squirrel to have hidden, once, six months ago.)
hate to say it but d-con and other awful poisons are probably the best way to go, as far as eradication, and flexible conduit to protect the lines you can't easily replace.
As I said elsewhere, glue traps are probably more evil than poison, and oftentimes live traps are as well, because you don't check them often enough and the animal dies of dehydration. And if you're really lucky the animal will manage to drag the glue trap into a place you can't get to and if you're young and still have good ears you can hear its little high-pitched screams for a couple days before it does die.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
A cat is not going to work. A cat will, at best, catch a few, but a cat does it one at a time. Your goal should not be to keep the population low, but to destroy all the rats.
His goal is not to exterminate all rats, but to keep them away. A cat will work, because it does not need to catch them all. The cat will scare them, and keep them away.
The problem with the cat, as I see, is it's hair clogging the fans.
factor 966971: 966971
You shouldn't have such tasty cables ...
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
When you called in the exterminator did they do a full survey of your facility to look for avenues of entry for the little guys? We had some mice in the wall between our garage and the inside of our house and the exterminator spent about two hours going around the entire perimiter and crawlspace looking for gaps they could get in. If you just keep catching and killing them you just get rid of the current ones but new ones will continually gain entry.
Find out how they are getting in. Block those entries with proper stuff (not foam, they'll chew through it, but solid wire mesh or drywall). Get rid of potential food sources. Then kill off the ones inside.
Neil
get them out of your server room.
The entire building must be dealt with by a serious extermination team.
Remove all food.
Plug holes.
Trap heavier.
Trap the outside of the building.
ETC...
Constant vigilance and you can get rid of them in 3-5 years.
Keep your cables out of edges and corners.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Ouch!
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
To be honest with you, that is your best defense. Electrical conduit is not that expensive and certainly cheaper than an outage from a cable being chewed into... You can get 100 feet of 1/2 inch for about $70...
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
So, you have Rats. ,attention, exercise, (especially the terrier breeds) and decent food (not cheap or generic kibbles, or you will clean up loads of big fluffy poo and rover gets plugged arteries and fat.).
For mice you get a cat. I am a longtime Siamese owner and while a large Tom could battle a full size rat, kitty could come out harmed with more rats to battle.
Rattus Norvegicus are smart and will doubleteam a cat if need be.
Get a dog suited to the job, if you're up to it. Rat or Fox terrier, Jack Russells would gladly stand up for the challenge.Several other terriers up to pit bull would work.Caution: Having a domestic animal as pet or beast of burden is a responsibility to provide PROPER care and love meaning
If you don't want the responsibility of caring for these animals at this point, there's another solution.
Buy a small generic jar of chunky peanut butter, (botulism could only help our cause)and a small box of glaziers points at your local hardware store. In a throw away mixing bowl or whatever, blend the two ingredients till homogenous, add the most toxic crap you have laying around. If the mixture thins, thicken it again with crackers or bread.
Scoop out in cookie size dobs with something you can discard afterward and place onto old plastic or metal lids. Stuff their old entry points with rough steel wool, place your DIY Deathburgers at likely points of congregation and wait. For Bobs sake don't have any domestic animals anywhere near.Be sure to recheck all the bait and pick up the carcasses before they start to rot. Use pliers and deposit Mickey in a garbage bag for whatever ritual you perform later.
Rest assured they will die painfully and just long and loud enough to let you know how hot hell is in their afterlife.
No activists were harmed in the writing of this how to. Any complaints can be forwarded to Santa Claus at the north pole. Active activists can hurry and catch the poor rat and send it to Santa Claus at the north pole. Any Exterminator industry revenues lost over the writing of this howto can be mailed to me in u.s. dollars.Do not bend fold spindle or mutilate and recycle if you feel like it.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
You could try spraying the cables with a bitrex solution. It's an idea I've had in the past but I have never tried it.
You could eat the rats. If we put our minds to it, we can eat anything into extinction.
The real CAT 5 cables are cat scented to keep the rats away.
Just simply drop a nuke on them. I grantee that all the rats are gone in an instance..
Time to get serious and set up the ultimate rat (bat, cat, ..., cow) vacuum cleaner.
http://www.oregonreptileman.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/anaconda.jpg
Did you manage to get the rabbits to stop chewing on cables?
My girlfriend has a rabbit that she's not very good at supervising. It's already severed a bunch of cables, and all the rest are all patched with electrical tape. It even chewed into the fridge power cord once, resulting in a loud bang... and completely unscathed rabbit.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
I'm suprised no one's suggested hacking together an sentry gun of some kind...
You could put turrets in for every fifty yards of cable... Create a DMZ around the conduits.
That would be a real self-defending network.
Disclaimer: This is not a serious suggestion.
Anyway, aside from the good recommendations, that have already been made, I would add one more...
Design your network for easy maintenance so when you do lose a fiber, you can replace it easily.
Also, use a self-healing LAN topology so you have time to repair it.
Keeping the rats away is nice, but being able to tolerate the damage they cause is far more practical.
Poisoning the cable isn't going to be quick enough to prevent the damage.
GrpA
Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
There are two kinds of societies: sustainable and doomed.
This is a place for good old fashioned Victor Rat Traps. From your favorite home center. These are the 4"x8" oversized wooden mousetraps. Bait some of them with peanut butter and some others with bacon, hard salami or slim-jim. Be real careful setting them, because they can break your fingers. My advice is to start with at least a dozen traps (they are cheap)... If you can screw the traps down, so much the better. Use gloves when disposing of the dead rats.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
First, you need competent pest control.
Second, cable-chewing is a problem solved long ago by Western Electric, back when they made the cable for the Bell System. Find a telco outside plant person and get their advice. For indoor use, there is rat-proof LAN cable.
There's a little trick (though a little dirty) that has always worked and will always work. Ready? Wherever it is you dont want rats to be around, just leave a dead rat corpse in the vicinity and they wont even get even close to that place (ask a professional if you dont believe me). rats have a natural instinct that drives them away from other rats' corpses, due to the possibility that whatever killed that rat will likely kill them too. It can be nasty and smelly, but it's 100% effective (ask your exterminator). good luck!
When my Karma level reaches 0 I feel in piece with the Universe
The most elaborate tech in the world won't beat a good ol' cat at eradicating vermin with precision. The AI, software, sensors and mechanical parts just aren't up to snuff. Cats are pretty self-reliant, sure you've got to take some care of them but in the end you'll spend alot less with the cat and have a cute work companion.
Get large bore conduits like the stuff used for electrical wiring. Run the fiber through that. That should at least slow them down a bit, yes?
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
Had a customer with a motorcycle shop that had a rat problem. His dog (Jack Russel) went nuts one day, and the owner pulled out a sawed off shotgun and promptly put a hole through the wall.
Exit one rat, four servers, a 440 volt three phase power line, air conditioning condenser, and five twinax runs. Add to damages the vet bill (pellets hit the dog), the doctor bill (pellets hit the owner), and my added expense to replace the servers, bring them from cold to hot, re-running the twin-ax cables, and the $5,000.00 USD (and this was back 15 years or so ago, call it about 8,000 USD today) for, and I quote:
"Extraordinary charge recovery for work location
in a free fire zone without body armor or hearing
protection".
He paid it.
The rat? We buried it without honors or marking it's grave.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Wrap the cables in steel wool. It hurts their teeth and they won't chew through it. I've seen it used in businesses to block up their holes.
"Necessity is the fruit of invention"
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/42/98272227_4f6f848bd4.jpg
Hey, atleast I never saw any rats/mice in Jurrasic Park, and that was one huge picnic spot... so yeah, velociraptors is the way to go.
maybe you can explain, since you're championing his cause. what are you supposed to do with the steel wool???
For backbone trunks buy direct burial cable.
Direct burial cable is armored, that is surrounded by metal. This makes it less interesting to eat.
If they do eat it, under the first layer or two is a rather gross snot like substance. Depending on who you ask it is to keep water out, or there because rodents hate to eat it, or both.
I wouldn't use rat poison unless you can get to the areas where they're gonna die, which won't be right next to the poison due to the time delay effect. Use rat traps with peanut butter. You might need a lot but it's pretty effective. That's what the CDC recommends. If you've ever smelled a dead rat you would understand why you wouldn't want one dead in a wall stinking the place up for weeks.
Having tried all sorts of glue traps and snap traps and not wanting to use poisons (dogs and kids) I went to electric traps.
We have a home on the edge of rural areas and had a moderate to severe rat infestation.
After a 24 hour bait it and don't set it period (they checked it out and cleaned out all the peanut butter) I re-baited it and set it (turned it on). Over the next 48 hours I had to get out the gloves and disposal bags 8 times (see Hanta references above). Over the next few weeks the frequency of reset dropped steadily and finally we did not see any evidence for months (the following spring).
I have to get the traps out and refresh the batteries about twice a year now, but the traps are clean, quick and a far as something that kills something can be, it's humane. Of course I still don't chase the tom that has made our front yard his hunting ground out of the yard at night (during the day he hunts finches and I do chase him out).
I once put a rat trap in a wiring cabinet that was connected to other buildings by 4" EMT [read: rat freeways].
I forgot about the rat trap for a month or three. Care to guess what happened?
I also once put a rat trap near where a rat had already destroyed a 50' VGA cable and a 50' 1/8" audio cable to a projector. I accidentally closed the trap on my hand. It hurt only momentarily, and no injuries. :-/
http://www.revver.com/video/38487/mongoose-eats-rat/
Getting a cat to protect your Cat5 cable?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
We killed 14 of the mice. The mice under our subfloor that went to two different fiber optic wire distribution boxes (FDBs) in separate rooms separated by a drywall sub-wall. These mice would chew through a specific wire in each of our two FDBs. Some theorized they were attracted to the light in the bent fiber, some theorized that perhaps the tech that terminated the cables with SC connectors may have eaten something and the scent attracted the rodents. Much cayenne pepper, many mouse traps and persistence stopped the mice finally.
Any chewing varmints don't like aluminum foil and will avoid it. Since foil comes in long lengths, its also easy to roll out a few boxes over the cables and crumple it around them.
This reply is going to get lost in this mess, but...
Find the holes and seal them up. Use the canned, expanding foam insulation. Get .25" x .25" wire mesh from your local farm supply store and heavy duty staples and cover up any and all holes into the place.
Screw the exterminators, they don't know what they are doing. I know it's their profession, but as someone who has not only seen them at other businesses not doing what they've been paid to do but also as someone who has paid them to clear out rats, they just don't go above and beyond.
Set out traps yourself, live or big rat traps. Live traps are harder because you have to get the rats use to them. So set them out for 2 weeks with bait/food, but don't set the traps.
For the bait, use a mixture of peanut butter, strawberry or blueberry jam/jelly and some meat, like beef jerky, grind or mix that all up and put that on the traps.
bye bye rats.
Most importantly you need to seal those holes up, otherwise they'll keep coming back.
If you understand the rat, and most animals, you end up with the solution at the end of my reply.
See, the sheathing on most cables and even PVC office runs have as a component the same chemical that is famous for killing pets when they drink automotive coolant. No, even in an auto dealer, don't use coolant to kill pests, keep reading.
The steel wool and foam are good ideas, but the scent of the vinyl is irresistable.
One item that rats find more irresistable than the vinyl, is peanut butter. Yes, here, you can even use salmonella afflicted peanut butter. put a spoonful on your glue traps, and the rat will find them more attractive than the cables are.
I have run into one situation where a pregnant starving massive mother rat was trying to build a nest out of the rain and was bigger than the glue trap...but she didn't even leave footprints behind or try the trap bait until we added peanut butter. Then we discovered how much bigger the problem was (by the footprints and left-behind fur) than we had thought!
It's not a better mousetrap, but it is better mouse bait.
Cats are lazy. If they're not hungry, they won't chase a rat. A *dog*, on the other hand, will chase a rat, a mouse, a cat, a squirrel, a skunk, a car ...
Anybody know if he's the same Mike Rowe from Mike Rowe Soft??
At my place of work, a University, we kill hundreds of rats and mice each day in the name of scientific research. Maybe you just have the wrong neighbors?
Solution to your problem, remote indicator for the Rat Zapper: http://ratzapper.com/rat-tale.cfm I too have used the Rat Zapper and it is the second most effective way of getting rid of rats I've come across.
ience.
Use *ELECTRIFIED* steel wool. Better yet, use electrified, salted copper wool. It'll give them the whoolies when they become part victims in as(sau)lt and battery. All the following rats will hopefully learn to go away because they'll be inextricably charged in current events...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Why not just run your cabling through conduit and be done with it?
Use a bitterant agent like Bittrex, the rats will be repelled at the first taste. They might even learn from the experience!
Rats are badasses, sure, so are agents, but they both have the same flaw: they think it's air they're breathing now. Fill the room with a Nitrogen/Argon mix and I guarentee the rat problem will stop _completely_ within miniutes. Your server room will also end up fireproof as a bonus.
Your office too eh? That might be... tricky... but I'm sure you're find a way, they make computer guys resourcefull for a reason.
I say, set up some tripwires for the rats. Bait them with Ratkensteins, or Frankenrats and treats to eat.
When they are scurrying about in the dark, on the wire-mesh-gridded floor, one or more of them trigger/s the 25 or so hidden Tesla coils that pop up like Bouncing Betty grenades. Only, these go vertical with wires, and with dart tips, they affix to the ceiling, as zapping and humming set off a cascade of:
Sqweee-squeee-squee squee, Sqweee-squeee-squee squee (multiplied by how many are getting the charge of their lives)
And, the problem is solved (nightly) with a
ratta-tat-tat.
Of course, mind your voltage, amperage, and other effects, or you'll have body parts stuck on the walls, racks, chairs, and lights. Talk about turning IT/server room into a chamber of horrors.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Don't forget to have plenty of Lysol on hand, because with all that arcing and sparking there will be a lot of hissin' and pissin'..
But, a cleaner way to deal with this is to hook up a bunch of Habitrails to the rooms. When the trap doors close, gas their asses, or, if you run electrified wires all inside the tubes, you can you can shock them into the age of the Intertubes, and transmit their doomed souls into the ether, semi-wirelessly. The ones caught 7 feet off the floor will be in nose-bleed city, with a spectacular view, bright lights, and euphoric gas before meeting doom.
Be sure to hook up a flushing system, and be sure your doper friends don't see this as a hyooge fuqin hooka system.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
... especially expensive headphone and laptop charger ones.
Just FYI, and from my experience with my two Burmese. Their apettite has fortunately waned somewhat now that they're a bit older (3y/o).
ISO certified == THX certified
There is only one way I know of to stop the damage. A physical barrier such as conduit or ducting. Its the best way to ensure cable integrity.
1) Remove the insulation.
I live in an old remodeled Victorian house across the street from a restaurant, and my solution has been to:
1. Cover all holes with industrial strength plastic outlet plates with steel wool + Great Stuff (expanding foam), and silicone caulk behind the plates,
2. Place chunks of thick layered plywood with fine wire mesh nailed onto the bottom under appliances, and
3. I have a Shiba Inu (dog) that kills any rat that dares find another way into this house and come out in the open in minutes. I raised my Shiba around technical appliances, so he knows enough not to chew on cables. Much harder to teach a cat not to do that.
..and with flex, you can probably save $$$ by finding miles of the stuff for free in demolition containers.
Just walk down the back alleys of proverbial "Main Street".. in both good and bad economic times, you're likely to find plenty of flex ripped out of false ceilings.
Just get some friends together to help you straighten out the old flex, and yank out the thick ac wires inside, and re-route your copper or fiber network cables through that instead.
If you decide to go with a cat, just make sure it's not a male in heat, or it'll 'spray' all your network connectors.. I've seen cat pee mess up phone and ethernet jacks.. turns the metal in the connectors green, messing up the electrical characteristics in a bad way.. and stinks for years, and doesn't wash off easily, even from metal and plastic.
I'll come in and protect your sacred fiber... I waited for 3 days and nights to kill an elusive mouse...all the traps i put out.. probably 3 dozen in various types... the high powered pellet went through his head.. and my problem was solved.
They LOVE it, They can't digest it, and they die.
There is another choice besides steel wool. I'll explain it under-pants gnome style:
1) make an elaborate tower of desecrated rat corpses
2) ???
3) net profit
Help fight spam
You considered battling mice with a cat in a server room? And this cat will be chasing and killing amongst all this equipment?
I would hazard a guess you're not a cat owner.
The unfortunate claws in that plan:
1 - If it is a old cat it will sit, watch the mice and drool.
2 - If it is a kitten/younger cat it will do bad job of killing mice, a fantastic job of smearing dismembered ones all over your office and likely be shredding your cables and rearranging your paperwork itself.
3 - If it is an adult cat, it will alternate between watching and occasionally chasing, killing, and have the body weight to pull out and subsequently tangle cables it encounters. You'll be investigating a site-wide outage at 4am, get into the server room and find the cat fast a sleep in a birds nest of CAT6.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Often cable insulation contains dextrose, so the vermin is attract by it...
Moth balls will keep most vermin away from an area for a couple of months or until the dissolve.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Mutagen.
Ninja rats are very loyal and caring.
Why not just use metal sheath for the cables. I know they do it for power cables in homes, so why not for data cables in server rooms.
What ever you do. Do not get a cat named Sylvester!
I am an IT guy that previously was an Orkin pest control tech. Mice and other rodents will chew anything. The best way of getting rid of them is to cut of their food supply. Poison traps everywhere. Block access and egress with the proper copper wool/steel wool. (they don't like biting it anymore than you would) That expanding foam stuff works good for outside walls because they are feeling around for warm drafts when they are outside. Mechanical multi-catch traps can work awesome if well placed. I know that years ago they were looking to make wire insulation containing hot chili pepper/capsicum oil and had great success. I always wanted to try it but never had a chance. Run your cables through a chili pepper bath when installing maybe? Rodents don't see very well at all so use that to your advantage, like placing traps along walls. Traps in the middle of a room hardly ever work. Glue traps are usually used as a monitoring station for insects not for trapping mice. Those ultra sonic devices are just a scam as far as I know. Hope this helps.
You could get the Steel reinforced cables...it is made to deal with things like rodents: http://www.hubersuhner.com/mozilla/products/hs-p-fo/hs-p-fo-cab/hs-p-fo-cab-out/hs-p-fo-cab-out-steel
Curious about Storage and Virtualization? Check out
Invest in a few cases. Put piles out every night for a week or two in places where you know the rats will move through. Rats eat the dehydrated potatoes. Potatoes hit moist rat stomache and expand. Rat Explodes. End of Rat. Then you just have to follow the smell to clean up the mess.
We used to do this in the horse barn. Cats don't like instant mashed potatoes, though you will have to put them in a place inaccessible to dogs. And dehydrated potatoes aren't poisons in the traditional sense, won't pollute the groundwater or foul anything else up.
I'd love to change the world but I can't find the source code.
We use this in the office, it really works:
http://www.clearpointdirect.com/proddetail.php?prod=2022000000
Then eat the insulation to build a nest then one day ZZZZZZZ either a flame or a trouble call LOL.
I suggest two saucers. One with an equal mixture of flour and concrete powder; add a little flavouring like onion powder if you like. The other should be nearby with some fresh water. Hopefully this wouldn't appeal to dogs, cats and children that might be wandering around...
Here here
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
dryer sheets, American brand name "Bounce", etc. supposedly keep rats away.
I had a problem with squirrels chewing through my Christmas lights until I smeared the wires with Tobasco sauce. I can't swear it'll work on rats but it's probably worth a try.
and the next time a cable tech rubs his brow...
"OH GAWD MY EYE"
I have had and solved this problem.
1st rats don't like well lit areas. If the roof space and server room is well lit (no dark corners ear walls) at all times, no rats will visit.
2nd pvc pipe around the cable as it passes through walls.
the heat, and smells emanating from the server room will attract vermin, both of these radiate through the holes where the cables pass. The vermin will chew the cables to widen the hole...
So add a big hole near the cables that is more attractive...
3rd cats are effective for mice not rats, cats are "mousers".
Terriers (the dogs) are ratters, goggle "ratters"
they are proven controllers of rats, cats and snakes just don't consume enough meet to be effective.
The latest Norscan Report has an article with some useful information.
"Problematic Pests: Protecting Your Cables":
http://www.norscan.com/PDF/0901news.pdf
"Rats and mice don't eat cables"
I'm a retired electrical contractor, and if what you say is true, how does that explain the several times over the decades that I've seen 10 or 12 gauge romex wire chewed completely through by a rat (from the look of it's droppings).
All the "shavings" of insulation were in the wall space below where they fell haphazardly, and certainly not used for nesting material.
The really odd thing about these cases was that only the neutral conductor was chewed through, the ground and hot wire was left untouched.
Anyhow, I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on this one due to my first hand experience/evidence.
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
"... and tend to eat whatever they smell other rats are eating".
So make sure to wash your hands after eating anything, and before handling anything you don't want to be chewed on.
I had a bunch of "stuff" in storage that kept getting chewed on by mice, and the damage was always small and random and it appeared that it was malicious behavior on the rodents part.
Not that I thought it was true, but I couldn't figure out why it wasn't actually eating anything, or at least taking it away for a nest.
It seemed totally random or so I thought at first, but observing the pattern of damage over the months (I won't use poisons), I figured out it was chewing everyplace my hands had held the object.
That's when I had the epiphany...
Almost every time I went to storage I had been eating food out of hand shortly before, and then not washing my hands afterward.
The big DOH! appeared and it was painfully obvious that the rodents were smelling good food, but after sampling some they realized it was a ruse, so to speak, and moved on to the next good smell to sample.
Wash your hands before handling anything you don't want a rodent to sample, and ruin.
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Run conduit for critical links.
Worked better than cats for me. The rodents could smell them and they went elsewhere.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
Bobcat urine.
Seriously. You can buy it online.
Rodents smell it and decide that they'd rather be anywhere but there.
How to keep rats from eating your cables? Oh, I don't know, maybe you should consider cleaning your house once a decade or so? All those bent mostly-empty cans of beer, half-empty bags of Cheetos, some stale popcorn here and there on the floor, the sticky residue of the coke that someone spilled a while back, the trash that hasn't been taken out since about March, the turds your dog left in all kinds of places that haven't been cleaned up, and all the other things that need your attention... well, I think they MIGHT have something to do with the rats that are eating your cables.
Or just get wifi and be done with cables altogether.
Fix with a construction foam all holes where a rat may get through. A general rule is if one can put a finger through a hole - a rat can get through. One may put a part of a stainless steel scrub for washing dishes into a hole before filling it with a foam.
We don't have rats. Simple solution.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I've installed almost a dozen solar powered network backhaul repeater sites in Alaska for research projects. Since we go in by helicopter we have a limited time and weight available to us. So we use armored cat5 instead of pulling conduit. You can get outdoor cat5e and armored fiber from blackbox.
My grandfather worked as a launch operations engineer for an air force contractor in the 60s and 70s. They did have a "Pad Cat" living on the launch pad to control mice. He said it was the only effective thing. And yes, someone had the specific task of finding the cat and taking him into the bunk house when they cleared the pad for launches.
"You never know when some crazed rodent with cold feet might be running loose in your pants."
-Calvin
conduit.
Simple and effective.
I'd suggest that you forgo the Acacia polyacantha subsp. campylacantha since it contains the hallucinogen Dimethyltryptamine [DMT,l].
I'm pretty sure he doesn't want a bunch of rodents tripping their little rat minds out around the campus, eh?
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
I have outside dogs so I had rats.
I tried everything including traps.
I put out the green box rat poison and that was it.
I've had to do it twice in 5 years. I typically put out a box where the dogs can't get to it in the fall and replace it yearly. Most years it is partially eaten but some years nothing.
Nothing worked except poison.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
How about using cable ducts? Could be as simple as plastic sewage tubing which you can plug up with fibre glass isolating material (rodents don't like them) and as a bonus you'll find it easier to lay down new cables
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
All the funny cat videos on You Tube have yet to top the hilarity of drunken squirrels falling out of trees, missing jumps from one tree to another, or running full out across the open ground with a half eaten slice of pizza only to run face first into a brick wall. Ah campus life near the frat houses. OK it won't solve your rat problem but it could at least add some amusement. ;)
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
I was trying to figure out what this had to do with keeping rats from eating data cables, then I realized, by your example, that the answer is quite simple.
You ignore them.
I had a few rats crashing at my place a couple of years ago. They got in through the dryer duct. Apparently, there was no cover on the outside. They were headed up by their indian chief "StealsMySocks". When it was all over with and I finally discovered they were coming and going through the dryer duct hole, I found over a half dozen socks stuffed in the duct hole. I had two dogs (one pit bull, one rhodesian ridgeback/lab) and I picked up a stray cat thinking she'd take care of em. I think the lab got one. The cat one or two. Pit bull nothing. There were always 3 or more running around the house. They mostly lived in my couches in my living room. Got one with the tape strips, that was gruesome, but they mostly managed to avoid them. None with the old school traps. Now one thing I noticed that no one else has mentioned is that the reason no one method works is because they generally have multiple motives for being somewhere. In my case, they never bothered with the kitchen, even though it was between the utility room and the living room where they hung out. So they weren't interested in my food. Apparently, they got plently of that on the outside. No, they were in it for the luxury accommodations. So before I went to the last resort and got an exterminator I decided to try out one of those ultrasonic emitters they claim they can't stand. Plugged it in and sure enough. Drove them right out. Never heard from them again. So depending on what they're after, ie, if it's peace and quiet, an emitter should work.
Try soaking the cables in cat urine before installing them. If you have a cat handy, bury them in the litter box for a couple days.
You don't need a cat, just the cat urine. Rodents will try to leave the continent when they smell it, unless they are infected with the parasite that lives in cat poo. No cat, no cat poo, no parasite.
Why do you have exposed network cables in the first place. metal conduit isn't expensive,and it's created for precisely this purpose. of course you'll never read this because the hope of posting with anonymity died 10 years ago, and yet I still keep on trying.
As another poster said, the rats are not "eating" your cables. They are chewing on them.
Why? Because they are there and likely in the rat's way.
Where is the rat going to? To and from his food source and his home. Also, possibly on the hunt for another rat. Rats often follow scent trails left by other rats.
Living things need three things to survive:
Food, water and a place to live.
They also need to procreate but procreation is dependent on the first three.
You can't get rid of the place to live. Rats, I hear, can chew through quarter inch steel given time. Bottom line, you are going to have a hard time keeping them out if they want in.
So, starve em and dehydrate em.
Assertions:
The cat thing is not going to work for a datacenter... trust me on this one.
Poison inside the building and traps outside along the walls will usually get those attempting to get in. Poison should be put close to any sources of water, inside the building, that cannot be done away with. Poisons, obviously, should NEVER be used where children are.
Find the rat runs and place traps along the path. Channel the rats over the traps using obstacles. Rats can smell you on the traps so... don't be discouraged if they avoid the traps. If you have a fresh dead rat, rub the trap with the rat to get it's smell on the trap.
Putting food in the traps merely draws more rats.
Here's an idea to quickly catch rats that already have a beach head in your building:
Using a large laundry bucket and a little sweet cracker. Put the sweet cracker in the bottom of the empty bucket and provide a way for them to get up to the edge of the bucket from the outside. Only the treat should be IN the bucket. Came back later and find a rat that can't jump out. Scratch one rat. Wash rinse repeat. I've never discovered a more reliable mousetrap.
RATS!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
They HATE them and will get as far as they can away from those things.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
putting cats in a server room is not a good idea, because they also have a habit to chew the cable insulation, seems some chemical attracts them.
e.g., my former colleagues cats were attracted to mobile charger cables and especially, keyboard and mouse cables. ;)
I am a UK based electrician and we have to protect mains cables from many environmental factors including fauna. The main way we achieve this is by using galvanised steel conduit with >2mm steel walls. It can be very labour intensive to install but it is just about the only thing rats can't get through.
Don't get just one cat. Get more than one. Get several.
You're right - Cat 1 and Cat 2 will probably do nothing. Most people won't even think they exist. Cat 3 will do most of the work, but won't harrass rats beyond 100 meters. Cat 4 needs motivation - give it a small token, like a ring.
Cat 5 can be faster than Cat 3, but like Cat 3, speed and response begin to attenuate after 100 meters. They start dropping packets, which should promptly be buried in the litter box. In the event that rodents bite back, you should consider shielding Cat 5.
Cat 6 is extremely fast with very little latency, but inflexible and difficult to work with. I use them in my fruit pantry, where rats ate "twisted pears"
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
I have no idea if this is true, but I worked with this Russian guy who participated in the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. He had some interesting stories, but one really stuck with me.
There was a rat problem where they were stations. To deal with this problem they would round up all the rats and put them in an empty 55-gallon steel drum and then go out on patrol for a couple of days.
He said when they came back there would only be one rat remaining in the steel drum and all the other rats were gone, no trace of anything. They would release that rat and it would turn into a rat eating machine, which helped greatly with their rat problem.
Like I said I have no idea if its true, he wasn't the kind of guy who you could tell you thought he was full of shit. But I always get a little creeped out when I think about these cannibalistic rats running around, like some sort of bad ass Splinter.
2 questions....
1) What the FUCK are you smoking?
and
2) Can I have some?
Actually, I'd worry more about the "Ragdoll" part in his choice of a cat. I had one.
Ragdolls are quite aptly named. It's the Garfield species. In fact like a stoned Garfield. It's the cat which doesn't even have much of an instinct to defend itself or run away when attacked, so it's advisable to only keep it indoors. And I haven't even heard of a Ragdoll with a hunting instinct.
Ragdolls are great if you want essentially a living teddy bear that you can hug and carry around as much as you want. (Most cats eventually get overstimulated and bugger off.) And it won't cause much chaos when you put it down and leave it unattended. In fact, it'll probably just go sleep on something soft, until it gets hungry and has to go eat.
It doesn't even explore much. In fact, I've sometimes heard of it being recommended to people with pollen allergies, because it won't bother much with going outside and coming back with pollen in its fur, even if it can.
It's _technically_ a cat in that it has most of the cat genes and anatomy, and meows. It's not a cat in the "miniature version of a ferocious predator" sense that most other species are.
It's definitely _not_ the kind of cat I'd have in mind if I want something hunted. It's the kind of cat I'd have in mind if I want, well, something mellow to hug and pet.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Chuck Norris.
I love how in a thread about killing one sort of mammal in bulk, the discussion has turned to how it'd be inhumane to have a neglected pet.
I have lived on a farm in England until recently, with loads of rats. In my experience poison or predators are not all that effective - rats are very clever. And it is not always possible to cut off their food supply either. What is normally possible, though, is to maintain a good standard of repair - this shouldn't be too hard for something like a serverroom.
Of course, this depends on whether the serverroom is a heaving mess of cables or not - things like walls, floors and ceilings must be easily accessible, since it is often much easier to make repairs from inside the room. Repair all holes and cracks, and if some of them have to be there, cover them with a strong iron grille. Even rats can't seep through concrete, and they are only in a serverroom because it is easy for them get in; even though you hear they can gnaw through concrete, they only do that if there is something they are very keen on getting, and their IT needs are normally somewhat less pronounced thar ours.
Poison might be useful but here's a solution that avoids poison. Mix up trays consisting of 1/2 flour and 1/2 cement. Provide plenty of trays of water. Because as some of the posters here have indicated, you may not be able to shut off their food supply.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Rats chew because they must. Rats belong to the order Rodentia which is derived from the Latin word "Rodere" meaning to gnaw. Their teeth grow continuously, and if they don't chew, will literally grow through their skulls and kill them. Rats will chew just about anything including lead pipes, wood, old concrete, cables and wiring, and any assortment of fabrics and animal products. Your cables are simply one more thing upon which to wear their teeth down.
Poison are problematic, because most are based on Cyanide, Strychnine, or Heparin like substances. They are all lethal to other mammals including people, and hundreds of people get accidentally poisoned every year. Baited traps are more effective at preventing unwanted collateral damage, however, dead rodents (and their droppings, fleas and ticks) can be vectors for bacterial, rickettsial, and viral infections including Plague, Hanta Virus, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
A more effective solution includes pheromones (there're a lot of scents that terrify rodents or drive them crazy... disrupt their normal cycles, ultimately forcing them out of a place), ultrasonics (disturb them, make their little rodent lives miserable), and spraying cables and important equipment with a polymer oil, with additives that make rats incredibly unhappy, for instance Caspicum (the painfully active ingredient in chili peppers.) All of these solutions are effective (especially in combination), and because they attack rodents literally where they live (beat up those fine senses hearing, taste, and smell) they can be very specific in their targeting with little or no collateral damage. A winner no matter how you slice it.
Why don't you try running the cables inside metal cable conduits? It's fairly expensive, but you can be confident no rodents will knaw through metal pipe to damage your cables.
I cannot believe that in a community of people who love technological solutions that no one has suggested this yet. I speak from experience and have NO financial interest in RodelSonix. I do have a home with an addition (master bedroom) where the contractor didn't bother to provide a way for humans to access the attic. Naturally, rats found a way to access the attic and began waking me up like clockwork at 2 a.m. (sliiiiide ... THUNK! as they came down a vent) and 6 a.m. when they did Olympic running training. Then they came down the wall into the crawlspace. NOT GOOD! I paid an exterminator to "ratproof" my house. That worked ... for 30 days. Three more free visits didn't help. We used traps, poison ... I began de-ratting Sunnyvale one rat at a time. They kept coming like lemmings. In despair, I began to think of using an infrared night vision camera hooked to a VCR to tape my roof at night and figure out which vent they were coming through, or Delta Force-style optical scopes to go through a small hole in the corner eaves to see inside the attic, or using chlorine gas to kill them. Finally, I saw an ad for a RodelSonix ultrasonic rat repeller for $89. I figured, after six months of open war and $750, what did I have to lose? Ordered it, put it in the closet pointed at the ceiling, turned it on ... BINGO, dead silence thereafter. It was like throwing a switch! Six months later, I heard a rat again. WHAT? I checked, and discovered that the cleaning service had unplugged the power cord. I plugged it back in, and no more rat sounds. It totally works!!! The device secures about 2500-5000 square feet IIRC. If you have a large facility, obviously the number of devices might get cost-prohibitive. Also, you can't use it if you have guinea pigs, etc. in the area since it bothers them too. FYI.
Try this product to get rid of the rodents. I have aviaries at home and have found this to help.
http://www.pestrepellerultimate.net/?gclid=CLC0__qm2ZgCFQxHQwodthULdg
Happy 1234567890 day!
EMT or rigid conduit. Let them try to eat through that.
It's easy!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
When I was a kid I had a Jack Russell mix that used to kill anything that move that was smaller then him. Terriers known to kill Rats and other rodents in fact in the old days they used them as sport dogs where people used to bet and see how many rats a terrier can kill.
My ex-girlfriend used to keep a domestic rat and let it free roam around her room. When I moved in with her I ended up sheathing all my cables in garden hose. The rat would nibble on those for a bit and get bored. Then we staple-gunned chicken wire to the underneath of ther bed to stop it getting in there. Strangely it never got the taste for phone chargers, but we did lose a TV to chewing.
"...laboratory rats never overcome an aversion to hot peppers".
Here is your recipe for success
I don't know if it is practial but you could paint/spray it with hot-sauce.
The rats love to chew on cables since the plastic contain a softener that tastes sweet.
Tabasco or any chili/habanero-sauce will quickly teach them not to eat your cables. (This is a harmless trick you could use at home to keep cables safe from pets and children as well.)
... and actually think about the reasons and causalities, instead of just fixing symptoms in the best style of medical doctors?
Why are they there in the first place? And why aren't they somewhere else, like in your home, or in my home, etc?
Rats, like all animals, need two things most of all: Food and shelter.
And apparently, your buildings are the best thing they can find. This can be, because your buildings
got a good food source.
have easily accessible holes that protect from the weather and predators.
have better shelter than elsewhere.
have less predators than elsewhere.
have less dangers than elsewhere.
are less crowded than elsewhere.
etc.
Make a checklist, and work off those things.
Make it as uncomfortable for rats as possible.
No food. Predators and dangers all around.
No way to hide or protect.
And much concurrency from other stuff.
They will go elsewhere, as soon as it is better there, and easy to get there.
It sounds hard, because doing something properly usually is.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I used to live in the country and Calico cats make the best "mousers".
I know a simple solution to keep cats from chewing on wires or other things is to take a bunch of hot sauce and rub it on the cables. The first time the cat tries to knaw on it they will taste the hot sauce and immediately stop, after acouple of tries they will not go back. Not sure if this would work for rats or not.
Another cat-specific solution is to spray citrus on the wires, cats hate the smell of citrus.
Anyway the point would be to do some research and find whats rats hate to smell or taste, and just wipe some of that on your cables.
...two pumps lets 'em know you mean business. (http://www.airgunsbbguns.com/Crosman_760_Air_Rifle_p/cro760b.htm).
Will you accept the charges?
Those rat bastards are gonna pay for eating up my cat5 cable!
I can't call that English
Please do your homework before purchasing a cat. Ragdoll cats are just as likely to run away from a rat as to attack it. They are extremely docile and won't even defend themselves when they are being attacked by another cat. If you want to get a good rat catching cat do your homework and speak with the group you are adopting it from.
"I have threatened my boss with a cat ..."
Is your boss a rat? That could be your problem, right there.
It'll be cheaper in the long term, I'll bet.
I used to install underground cable for a living. The reason they are eating the insulation is the plasticizers. They are a modified animal fat added to the HDPE to keep it flexible. Smells delicious to most rodents(gophers LOVE the stuff). There are (in underground apps anyway)cables that are engineered to prevent this. For indoor use...well armored cable is always best.
Explosive Cheese
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
I would get one of these.
http://www.happyfunball.com/hfb.html
Find some of the hottest sauce or spice you can find. And rub it on the wires. It keeps my friends cat from gnawing on his tv wires. I wonder if it would work with rats.
I have used Tabasco or Jalapeno vinegar juice on squirrels in the attic, it worked.
Keep a spray-bottle full, spray all the hidden (problem area) cables that people and pets typically don't touch (weekly at least). Provide (if you feel you must) a couple old phone books for alternative nest building material. Train the rodents what not to eat in your symbiotic relationship [common environment].
Getting rid of the pest is easy, but sealing access to the area is best. Lowes/HDepot get some spray-foam fill holes in the floors and walls. Rodents like most animals and manager-parasites are opportunistic ... will take the easy path to success provided by other animals and very intelligent people. Additionally, the foam will sometimes totally entomb rodents in the floor/wall and you will avoid the decay-smell that frequently comes with the poisons option.
Anyway... !Havefun!
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
There is at least one permanent protection you can deploy against such attacks:
(1) run all your cables under the floor (keep them out of the ceilings and walls)
(2) encase the under-floor portions of the cables within steel conduit just barely large enough for the cables in that particular cable run
(3) fill the remaining under-floor areas with concrete making sure that all of the steel conduits are thoroughly buried to prevent the rats from eating the steel conduit.
If you think I'm kidding then you haven't seriously tried to deal with these pests. And, yes, I have seen this approach implemented before.
...and nuke the place from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
The make vermin-resistant cable. Seriously.
Back in the 1980's I ran my first inter-building connection, across Broadway in lower Manhattan. We used a Con Ed tunnel for the run (I wonder how much that cost the bank). It came up beautifully for a day, then began intermittent outages. Three days of hair-pulling later, we had a Con Ed crewman down the manhole looking at our cable. He was a big Irish guy, had to be 6'2" / 210 at least. A few minutes later we hear "screee" and wonder what happened. A few seconds later the guy pops his head up holding a dead rat (yes, he was wearing gloves) and explained that we had installed the wrong cable between buildings. Lesson learned.
Start calling the cable manufacturers. Here's a link to get you started: http://www.bangkokcable.com/catalog/BCC_CATALOG/SPECIAL3EN.HTML
Good luck!
My problem is similar, except that we had a seemingly endless supply of field mice. They're supposed to be an endangered species, but in the Cotswolds, UK, they're as common as rats.
We have a garden shed which contains a repeater for our public WiFi hotspot .
It also contains bedding for our chickens, and used to contain feed for the chickens and pets.
The mice population exploded, they were eating the cables and using the sheathing as bedding. We had an antique/old-junk chest [1] in the shed, they climbed up inside it and had families in the drawers.
I bought some plastic barrels to keep the chicken feed in, and moved the barrels down to the orchard where the apple fall meant plenty of easier food alternatives anyway.
That solved the mice problem - they just moved out. Mice don't appear to be persistent or fixated on anything, they just follow the food (or, more accurately, don't bother going anywhere there isn't any food).
Rats, on the other hand, are a total pain. They've discovered the bedding and are a nightmare. They're also of sufficient size and speed that it is of no consequence to them to bed down in the cosy shed, and then run back and forth to the orchard when they need a snack.
My solution with the rats was, initially, poison, which worked well but good rat poison is very expensive.
Eventually I just shot them with my pellet pistol. They don't breed as fast as the mice, they're big enough for me to get an accurate shot at, and provided I use the correct pellets (I recommend either Crossman PowerPell or Crossman VerminPell), they're disabled in one shot. I then walk over with an iron bar and dispatch them with a blow to the back of the head. My .177 CO2 gun doesn't have enough oomph nor a large enough caliber to kill with one shot and I'm certainly not going through the hassle of getting a firearms licence in the UK. I could get a .22 air rifle, but I'm not a great shot with rifles, I grew up with pistols.
The wife did try humane traps for a while, but even dumping them a mile away didn't seem to thin the numbers. Rats can travel far and never seem to forget where they want to go.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Cats? You got a vermin problem get SNAKES! FInd a local Snake that eats vermin buy about 10 more them and release in your facilities. Do not use foreign snakes boas and whatnot. Snakes eat vermin then Move on once vermin are gone. Make sure they are large enough to not get stuck in your Powersupply fans.
I had a "fixed" male cat "mark" a computer once. I'd left open the side of the case, lost every bit except the FDD. Mainboard, RAM, slot-one CPU, (long time ago), power supply, HDDs, case got all corroded, ugh. BTW it's females that go "in heat".
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I take it that these vermin have proven impervious to traps?
I have this one, great pet, but..
1) They are smart, but not good mousers
2) Their long hair will clog your PSU's and kill your computer (happened to me twice) if you neglect to do monthly cleaning.
is to shoot the fuckers. If you are concerned about damaging equipment, try snake shells.
The last time I saw a rat in my house, I managed to hit him with a revolver I had lying around. Needless to say some of my dinner guests were a little surprised, but they all agreed it was a great shot.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
Just rub some cayenne pepper powder onto the cables. VERY few mice will try to chew the insulation if that is on it. It's a cheap, easy solution that has worked for me on several occasions.
This stuff is yummy to the rodents, and kills them in a couple of days. Once you've killed off the main permanent population, you've only got the replacement rate of those that wander in from time to time. It's cheap and easy to use. In one case, I had a mouse problem and put out some brick bait. One of the bricks was so delicious that the mouse actually ran off with it.
But your bulidings should already have rat bait boxes placed along the outside walls of buildings. If they don't, your real problem is that someone is slacking in the pest control department.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I have worked somewhere with rats, and we kept all food on lockdown to try and get rid of them (luckily, we ran all of our cabling through conduit, so the rats didn't gnaw any of it), but as it turned out the rats were just in the building for shelter during the winter, and their food sources were all outdoors and they had found some way in and out of the building that involved climbing the gutters and going in through an attic vent. Rats are very clever. We also had an office cat, but she did not eat nearly enough rats to make a difference.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
Short term - poison, traps, clean up. Dose your cables with Bitter Apple (Vet and pet shops will have this). Use split wiring looms as needed.
Mid term - Traps (Tin Cat repeater traps, Havaharts, Victor snap traps), poison boxes, keep cleaned up.
Long term - Electronic repellers (if you don't have pets, they can be harmful) seal up ANY exterior holes, screen all vent holes, keep food sealed and stored securely, keep your place neat and clean. Keep your traps loaded with fresh bait, refresh your poison baits as well, change locations as needed to eliminate any patterns they might use to get around the traps.
If you live in an rental and the management is tardy in assisting in the issue, get the tenants together in an emergency meeting and call the local heath department as an organization. If you live in a single family rental, contact the city building inspectors.
Go VERY public with your issues, no one likes it when the press starts nosing around in their affairs.
One building has a rodent issue, there will be others that will have them. No one wants the Bubonic (Black) Plague, so why screw around?
http://www.doyourownpestcontrol.com/
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
a nice aeg airsoft gun will help you to kill them when you see them.
get an office pet. a rat terrier or other terrier mix will solve the problem.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Cats are wonderful mousers, and will gladly take on most smaller vermin, provided you don't feed them too much (which can be a problem in public spaces). If they're not a little hungry, they won't pursue mouse very vigilantly, usually.
However, you say you have a rat problem. It pays to know your enemy.
Rats will grow to roughly the size of small cats in about two years (then they die). Also, Rats will absolutely, positively, no exemptions whatsoever seek water, and they must have water every day or they die. They cannot survive very long without it. So, there is something you may be able to deal with right off the bat ... find the source of water and fix that issue right now. Usually it's leaky something or other; they don't need much water, but they do need water.
Next, use the right tool for the job. Cats are not very useful against rats, and will not be able to eradicate them even if they are somewhat successful. Get a Terrier. These dog breeds were originally specifically bred as Ratters. They will seek out and kill any and all Rats they can. Although training would obviously help, they don't necessarily need it ... any true Terrier will do it naturally.
Live with rats? How ghetto is your "dealership"?
My understanding is that you can find rats almost anywhere; the population of rats in most urban areas is estimated to usually equal the human population. We don't really have ways to rat-proof the sewers and storm drains.
This is the most important part, but the next part is important too: KILL KILL KILL. Rats reproduce like crazy so killing the odd rat is not going to do it. Over-do it if you have to. How many bait stations does your exterminator put down? Tell him to put down ten times as many... better yet, hire a new exterminator. Bring out the heavy guns. Remember, nobody ever failed to eliminate a rat population by using too many traps and too much poison.
The Webcomic "Schlock Mercenary" has a fictional book titled "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates" in which one of the rules is:
37. There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'time to reload.'
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Buy some really hot habanero peppers at the store or perhaps some really hot sauce and rub it on your cables. I don't suggest the latter because the ingredients will probably stink, where just plain pepper juice doesn't. If you're really desperate spray some mace on a rag (wear gloves and goggles) and then rub the cables down. This can be a very inconvenient solution if the cables are often times moved around and touched by people, but if they're more or less permanent fixtures this can work. You'll have to reapply every now and again to keep them nice and spicy.
I realize this doesn't get rid of the rodents, but they will certainly be deterred from chewing the cables. Mammals generally hate anything with high levels of capsaicin so this trick also works for dogs who chew on stuff they shouldn't.
A cat won't help.
Sure it'll probably get rid of your rats, but cats like to chew cables too.
I've heard that continuously transferring the ratpoison window manager between computers can drive The Rodent away.
I have a similar problem, but with rodents eating wires in a van we park outside in a area rampant with field mice for a week at a time. They don't stop at the insulation, but frequently go straight through the copper. When we try to drive the van home at the end of the week, the engine light usually comes on, and we have to try to rebuild the wires enough to drive home. Poison isn't an option, as we're working in an area with endangered Kit Foxes and nesting Bald Eagles. Using steel-wool to seal up entry holes isn't really an option, as the whole engine compartment is open. We could try traps, but we're parked in a few hundred acres of grassland, so I can't imagine our traps making even a small dent in the mouse population.
The solution we have been looking for, but have been unable to find, is a material to wrap the wires with that is dis-tasteful to the rodents. I'm not sure if such a material exists, but it would seem that there is a market-place for it.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
--Kevin
I've used electric 'Rat Zappers' to humanely kill rats that have infested my storage area. There's no blood and guts, it kills them instantly, and you can use rechargeable batteries to power them. You have to check them regularly, and can't use them outdoors, but they actually do work.
Yeah, ok, we'll see how long you keep your job after you set off a Tesla Coil in the Server Room!
Dip all the cables in Strychnine, thus creating an evolutionary trait in rats not to chew on cables and helping us all.
http://www.bird-x.com/transonic-pro-p-29.html Use a Transonic PRO - Plug it in, and watch them leave. It sends out ultrasonic sounds that harass the critters. Full disclosure: I'm the Systems Manager for Bird-X
Mothballs.
Spray a mixture of Tobasco and water on the trouble areas with a cheap mister bottle. That should prevent them from doing more than sniffing them.
Armoured cable we have. After an experience with the unarmoured kind.
Glue traps are the BEST. Put them along walls and other high traffic areas and you'll catch all the mice in fairly short order. If it's your house or some place you work, you will hear the mice flopping around with the trap. You can't miss it, and its a beautiful sound. The best part is you can kill them anyway you want. Put them in a garbage bag and pipe your car's exhaust into the bag to kill them humanely. Place them outside and let nature run its course. Throw them off a bridge. Campfires. The possibilities are endless!
I've never had any luck with the snap traps. The sticky traps are a godsend.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
It is recommended by that you use an armored cable. http://catalog2.corning.com/CorningCableSystems/catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?cid=Gel-Free(CcsNaftaPdfCatalog)&pid=ALTOS%20Armor(CcsNaftaPdfCatalog) or http://catalog2.corning.com/CorningCableSystems/catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?cid=Tight%20Buffered%20-%20Indoor(CcsNaftaPdfCatalog)&pid=MIC%20Riser%20with%20Interlocking%20Armor(CcsNaftaPdfCatalog)
- Provide the cables with some steel/copper insulation and electrify it (animals hate to be electricuted). This is a short term solution, while you take care of the problem. /clean/, cleaning should be a constant job in those areas.
- Get rid of (potential) food sources.
- This means that there should be no food like scents (this includes scents you don't like). Rats trust their nose to find food.
- Have garbage taken away on a daily basis, or at least gathered at a central location which either serves as a rat trap or is unreachable for rats.
- Food supplies should be sealed and stored in a cold and dark room. That room should be hard to reach/get out of for rats.
- Kitchens (or anything kitchen like) should be
- Make sure the building is cleaned on a daily basis.
- Don't have hollow walls, unless where strictly needed.
they also hate vacuum cleaners, hair dryers and everything containing fast-rotating fan/turbine. They hate them big time. Don't even try to bring a cat near such a noise. You'll miss a lot of your skin.
Removing what they're looking for (food, nesting, etc...) is the best thing. However, they'll keep returning searching for stuff and what's worse is that babies follow there mother's scent for food. So, you'll have issues even when momma's dead. So, if you really want to just kill them when they do show up I suggest finding their entry point(s) and closing it AND setting traps by the entry point.
These work really well, http://www.ratzapper.com/. I own 2 and it helped to stop or problems. You may go through a lot of batteries and a lot of dead mice/rats but eventually the numbers decrease.
Perhaps an army of Sphynx would do the trick.
Bring back Sirius Punk!
Just pour green ooze into the closest sewer drain. This will cause the rats to transform into martial arts sensais. They will then start working for you, training the nearest reptilian mutants into crime fighting ninjas with immature attitudes.
What the smuck am i foking? Muthing Nan. I don't thoke anysming.
But, if you get the Habitrail going there'll be LOTS o smoke... Maybe vent it to your least favorite department. They can get the ITHantaVirus...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Good chilli and booze?
This is supposed to make them leave?
Hell, If I got free chillis and booze, I'd never leave my house!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Well, at least i would get to say:
dRATS!
And, "Your BEST BUYS are ALWAYS at FRY's... GUARANteed..."
Then, we can all sing "Fly Robin Fly" and "Rat in the Kitchen"
Say, where's the UK guy who set up Linux-based web-cam surveillance in his home after being burgled several times. I bet someone could set up motion-tracking systems with a mesh floor. This could then reduce and concentrate electrical use only to the right grid...
Hit Grid 4-A.... "YOU SPANKED MY RATTLEship..." Or, steer the rats in an adjacent or diagonal set of grids and you have Connect Four...
And, if you're a Trekkie, add little doors and call them "Disintegration Chambers"... Or... RattleTraps.... they'll join the others on the other side of the "ExtraNet" / InterTubes...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Fill up your house with carbon monoxide (Without you in the house obviously)and see all the rats suffocate.
USPS made me sign the card next to the See ID, then asked for my ID.
I feel that is the best compromise, because not signing is asking for trouble.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
Trapping is good clean fun. I got into it checking out a book from the library called "Tiniest Game Hunter" or something like that. Given enough time and ingenuity, trapping is the way to go. I have had good luck with the spring-loaded oversize mousetraps, but my somewhat more wealthy friend recommends the Rat Zapper 2000.
The most straightforward approach, I think, would be to set traps - of the $.50 each, drug store variety. Set up a map with the "problem areas" plotted out. Chances are you will see a pattern: the areas are not that far from sources of food. Rats, like deer and most other animals, will take the shortest route between two locations. Use this information when planting your traps.
A very successful trap is a 'bucket trap'. Here is an example of one such bucket trap.. Basically, you have a basin with water in it, and a lip on the basin high and steep enough to prevent the rodents from climbing out. You then place an object - a board or wire - leading out to the center, where you have placed a pole sticking vertically out of the water which contains the bait. The perpendicular bait pole needs to be narrow and slippery (ie something a rodent can't easily climb).
The object which is parallel to the floor needs to be at least several inches from the vertical rod in order to
You can also make a good bucket trap with a piece of 1x2 lumber from the hardware store and a common door hinge. Balance the 1x2 on the lip of the bucket, with the hinge on the inside (and a small flat wood spacer to allow the hinge to not bind on the side of the bucket), with the tip of the 1x2 in the middle of the bucket's opening. This works well if the other side sits on something where the rodent can/does travel (ie interpret their path of travel nad put the bucket nearby). (Make sure your 1/x is balanced with the weight of the bait included.) Rat or mouse comes by, walks onto the 1x2, and falls in - automatically resetting the trap.
This trap works with pretty much any scavenger, by the way. It'd probably work with deer, if you could make a large enough trap. I've seen stock water feeders used for racoons and halved 30-gallon drums used for rats. Basically, if you can get them in the water, they will drown to death after getting too tired to swim any more. (Obviously, the water has to be deep enough that they can not stand in it and breath). This trap type is a real boon as it's automatically resetting, ecologically safe (ie no neurotoxin poisons in an inhabited area like an office, house, barn, etc.), mostly silent, and easy to maintain.
A couple pointers... rats and mice prefer to nest in stale, warm areas. They will shit in or near their nests, and they should have a fairly poignant odor: if you can't smell it, find someone who can (some people have a very, very strong sense of smell/taste - ask around the office, you're sure to find someone). If you can identify the source of the nests, it'll aide in strategically placing baited traps and ease/speed the extermination. Finally, it only requires trace amounts of food - crumbs - to attract rodents, as that's still something they can eat. (You don't eat in your office/server room, do you?) Any food source used as the bait should be moist and preferably oily with a strong odor, as they locate the food by scent. Rancid organic peanut butter works really, really well (they seem to prefer it over non-rancid non-organic stuff by a long shot).
If you have the inclination and are able, climb up into the ceiling around the problem areas and see if you can see any other signs of rodent infestation: small asymmetrical holes in sheet rock, small piles of dust where there shouldn't be - even foot trails, which should be visible if present (especially in an older building).
A couple caveats and potential problems you'd run into involving dead animals: dead bodies stink - bad. If you poison them (especially with the kind of poison which they don't bring back to their den), you are likely to have a lot of dead rats and mice all over your building: they will, in many cases, be impossible to retrieve, and people will be very angry about the odor. You might also run into this problem if you use drug store type traps, as they might not be completely killed and run off and die with the trap still attached, making retriev
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Try Sonic Technology's Pestchaser, which puts out an ultrasonic scream that's to rats as a stuck smoke alarm is to us. It's worked for me here in Australia, even though it's 120v only. I had a totally permeable shed full of cables and a rat's nest, but the next day all rats had fled. And they never returned.
The drug stores sell (or use to sell) a nasty
liquid that you are supposed to put on your
kids fingers so they taste nasty.
The goal is to teach them that it's not good
to bite your nails or suck your thumb.
A small spray bottle of that would make your
wires taste bad before there was ever a nibble.
I googled and found "mavala stop"
I have pet rats and I use to work at PETA and I say let them eat your cables!
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Cats
They have ones now that send it right through the power lines turning them into transmitters. It would be interesting to investigate if the Ethernet cable could transmit the sound without interfering with the data. Perhaps unused pairs could be used if the ultrasonic frequency would cause data loss or corruption.
I was galvanized at first reading about you idea, but ultimately find it revolting, and I'm sure that although it's well-grounded it will meet with resistance and nobody will follow your lead, no matter how you plug it. The arc of events will go something like this: a rodent will have his eye on an opening but find the mesh welded there (be careful of whiskering at the solder points), and be drawn to it. Although he was live, so was the mesh, and he will feel closure. Rat taken care of. But here's why it's hard to remain neutral: I'm positive that a big negative is the accumulation of rat corpses, which get smelly fast (and are hard to get at inside walls).
.sig withheld by request
If you mix 1 or 2 tsp of cayenne pepper in 2 cups of water in a spray bottle you should be able to detract them. If that doesn't work mix in liquid dish washing soap.
The bitch is you have to keep doing it since rats don't live long or pass on advice to their litters.
Do what I did:
Move to the barren desert. 130F does seem to thin the herd out abit. But, the ants on the other hand are a bit harder to get rid of.
HEHEHE... I suppose you have nobellium for grisly elements of decomposition...
It's kinda ironic: I almost had a galvanic response. It's not as if i told you to curium with erbium and eat em to get your carb(s)on. But, you know, to really get rid of those buggers, you have to cesium by the claws and cerium nice and good.
I guess -- out of some sense of noble thinking -- i periodically try to discharge a mass of polarizing outer ring, shell-shocking information. But, one way to dispose of the rats would be to continue to barium until they argon. Just be sure to clean your hands in the zinc, and don't let the director nickel and dime your budget to death. If the director wants to know what you did with the bodies, just say you sodium to the lowest-price bidder. As long as you don't discharge your duties in a hafnium manner, things will be a breeze.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
You feed them? :P
...smearing cheese on em for starters
Negotiate a contract with an exterminator where he gets paid only on months when you find no vermin.
Sell the company on the potential to get paid for 22 months after working hard for two.
Consider what you've been paying monthly so far in exterminator bills and equipment repairs plus your time. You could pay that much monthly to your current exterminator and continue to get your current results forever, or you could pay a bit more monthly and keep the vermin away.
It'll take some negotiating and probably a different exterminator.
I reckon you get a Siberian tiger.
Another good mouser, or rat eater, is a ferret. Plus they are good help in running wires.
I don't know how well this applies to where you live but the rats that nest in our house are vegetarians and bring in their own food (acorns). Before we bought the house it had obviously been the home for many generations of rats. In my ongoing war I only began to edge ahead of their rate of reproduction and discovery of new ways in by following the advice in a manual distributed by local authorities. Vertically mounting the old-style Victor wooden traps on walls or other paths has had a 100% kill rate for me. When they stop going off the colony is either dead or gone. When I hear them back I look for pathways and setup new traps. Eventually I would like every thing closed in under our house but that will take a while. Check out this guide: http://www.msmosquito.com/pdf/Rat.pdf
Me 2 please
Real happiness lies in the completion of work using your own brains and skills.