I Hate Those Mices To Pieces

[Wander]

The mice have been at work with their kapok sensors.
Just been in the shed to give the sleeping bag an airing and...well, mice have been using it.

These things happen.

What do you use for long term storing in the shed?
I had mine in one of those plastic Really Useful Boxes (I know, not the best)...but without the lid on (yeah, I know).
Have any of you found a better mouse-proof alternative?

 

[Erbswurst]

The outdoor equipment belongs packed ready to go into the hiking rucksack in my opinion, and this into a wardrobe case in the sleeping room or in earthquake areas next to the house door. Like this it doubles as a potential disaster bag and you avoid to forget something, and you loose no time if the weather is fine and you have a free weekend.

If you put your stuff into the shed it will degrade, with mice or without.

 

[Toddy]

Mine live in huge great barrels in the loft.

The barrels are the ones that are used by food factories to transport stuff like tomato and curry sauce. They clean out surprisingly well, usually the sauces are bagged inside the barrels, and they are excellent and robust.

Like these.....

Plastic Open Top Drums

Open top plastic drums with removable lids and heavy duty, steel-lever closures. UN-approved containers suitable for storing a wide range of goods. Heavy duty polyethylene construction Removable lid & steel locking ring Crevice-free, smooth interior Designed for specialty chemicals and food...

www.bigdug.co.uk

 

[Wander]

The loft.
Yes, I hadn't thought about that. Seems obvious now.

 

[JonathanD]

I had mine in one of those plastic Really Useful Boxes (I know, not the best)...but without the lid on (yeah, I know).
Have any of you found a better mouse-proof alternative?

Those boxes would probably have worked fine.... had you put the lid on

 

[Broch]

I have divided my kit into two lots - stuff mice will damage is kept in a blanket box in the house (sleeping bag, hammock, under-blanket, even the tarp), stuff they can't damage in a lidded box in the workshop/shed (stoves, axes, knives, etc.). I use Euro packing boxes, much stronger, they stack, and I can load them straight into the Landy.

I hate killing things and really do not enjoy putting traps out but I'm afraid I have to in what we call 'the studio' as it contains all my art stuff and all the missus' materials and wools etc.

 

[Van-Wild]

I have huge plastic storage boxes which have clip on lids. The boxes are stored on shelves off the floor. I have mice for sure, but they haven't gotten into my kit. My rucksack is always packed, ready to go, and that goes in its own box as well, next to the 3 days contingency box.......

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

 

[PREPER]

In my shed I have a couple of plastic rubbish bins (the round thick black type with lids), I think they were about £7 each on sale from the local diy store.
Also we use them outside to store dry pet food. An old chest freezer would also work.

Preper......

 

[slowworm]

The loft.
Yes, I hadn't thought about that. Seems obvious now.

We get mice in our loft, along with voles and even shrews when they're not frying themselves in junction boxes.

 

[Erbswurst]

The only material that is rat proof is steel, by the way. They even work themselves through concrete.

But a plastic barrel seems to be a good idea, because there is no corner to start.
That's why it can keep away a single rat that comes along.
But should they live under the shed you need steel containers. But they will rust of course.
What I store in the shed isn't expensive enough to put it into stainless steel boxes.

The point is generally that you have to defend all your belongings. If not nature will take it back.

Less is more!

 

[Toddy]

We get mice in our loft, along with voles and even shrews when they're not frying themselves in junction boxes.

We had mice up there one Winter, I left the hatch open and let the moggie roam around.
We haven't had any since, but I still put things like my sleeping bags in the barrels, just in case.

I don't think the barrels would stop rats, but thankfully we've never had rats. Pretty sure I'd pester my neighbour who keeps ferrets to come visit if we did.

 

[TeeDee]

I have a Cat...

I say Cat , what I mean is something with four legs, a bad attitude and a Lord Byron type reputation, that could quite easily appear in the Hague for war crimes against vermin.



It often creates small staged vignettes of furry cadavers around the house in some sort of macabre nod to Hannibal Lecter

 

[dean4442]

TeeDee, so basically you've adopted Greebo?

 

[TeeDee]

TeeDee, so basically you've adopted Greebo?

I had to look that up.

Quite possibly.

Its either that or through the power or reincarnation one very Peed off high ranking Ninja grandmaster trapped in a feline body and is determined to make the world of vermin pay.

I don't so much mind it doing its thing.

Its the leaving of small furry squishy body parts around the house floor to be found like soft wet rogue Lego blocks that I find unsettling.

 

[Tengu]

Aww, Dads Blackie is a grand hunter...though mercifully he does no harm to the many garden birds.

 

[TeeDee]

Aww, Dads Blackie is a grand hunter...though mercifully he does no harm to the many garden birds.

Ebony is not so much in the realm of grand hunter as more full deranged Colonel Kurtz in heart of Darkness.

But at least no mices!!!

 

[Toddy]

My Tom was like that. My bother said he was a fiend from hell, but he was my big soft pet

I called for him one day and spotted him running down the burn path to the gap under our fence, he had the biggest rat I have ever seen firmly gripped in his fangs.
I told him to," Put that down!", so he bit it's head off, dropped the bits, and came in for a cuddle and a bowl of chicken

That was the only rat I ever saw in all the years I had him.

He was black and white and there are almost no other coloured cats around here now. There are two that wander through my garden that are his double.....

 

[Robson Valley]

Years ago, I had a nice summer house in a lakeside resort. XXX bad winters.
Had to restock all the groceries every June when I got there. Seemed a shame
to toss or gift all the dross at the end of August.
I bought two galvanized, full sized steel garbage cans. All the carbs like rice and pasta, etc went in there. Crackers and so on. Never, ever had a single mouse problem over many years.
Never did it, had bedding storage. But, a can like that would be cheap insurance for costly sleeping bags.

 

[TeeDee]

Years ago, I had a nice summer house in a lakeside resort. XXX bad winters.
Had to restock all the groceries every June when I got there. Seemed a shame
to toss or gift all the dross at the end of August.
I bought two galvanized, full sized steel garbage cans. All the carbs like rice and pasta, etc went in there. Crackers and so on. Never, ever had a single mouse problem over many years.
Never did it, had bedding storage. But, a can like that would be cheap insurance for costly sleeping bags.

No mice problems.

Just Bear problems?

 

[Robson Valley]

Bears? Never in the winters of course as they are all hibernating.
I expect to see the first Blacks emerge in a month or so. Nothing to eat at all here until we get some south-facing grassy patches to green up.

That part of Canada is the Grassland Biome, quite inadequate bear habitat.

Those steel cans paid for themselves in food economy and security.
Mice and voles make such a mess, racoons in the house would have totaled the place.

Where I live now, the black bears come into the village in the autumn to forage on unpicked tree fruit (apples). Most folks don't go out at night unless the place is really well lit up. 6PM and McBride packs up like a parachute except for a couple places to eat. I have some apple trees. The fruit quality has turned out to be a disappointment. So I barter all of it as pig food in exchange for some pork cuts later on.

I've never heard of grizz coming into town (there's always a first time) but they are around on the ranches, looking for livestock to kill. That normally ensures a terminal illness.