Mice and Electrical Wiring

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

All those horror stories you've heard about mice eating the insulation off wiring and burning down houses? True.

The attached photos are not something I found on the internet. They're what I found in my house tonight.

Had been smelling the unmistakable stench of dead-something in the front foyer the last couple days right around the wall-mounted coat rack. Looked on the floor, checked daughter's boots and shoes nearby in case the cat decided to play hot/warm/cold. Nothing. Wondered if something crawled into someone's coat pocket and died. Even set one of my wife's coats out on the deck to air out. Could still smell it. W3JN was here earlier and I mentioned it to him.

Decided to look again after he went home as the smell was still there despite the banished coat. Moved another coat to discover - a wall outlet.

So now I'm thinking great, a mouse died in the wall because there's no way it could get into the outlet box, and we're going to have to wait out the stench.

WRONG. These little creeps want us dead.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

And the amazing part is - clearly this one was not the first!

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

And the way they got in became obvious once I got the mess cleaned out. Yet another reason to hate those cheap contractors plastic boxes. Never liked them since I saw my first one in 1994. Flimsy, poor fitting, and apparently a snack for mice who have nothing better to do than eat the insulation off wiring and kill themselves. Their version of the suicide vest, no doubt.

How this could've happened at least 5 times without one of them succeeding in burning down the house is beyond me. This one didn't even trip the breaker despite being welded to the outlet. Had to remove him with a pair of needle nose pliers.

Tomorrow I'm off to the hardware store for some expanding foam to seal the box holes then I'll work at cleaning up the wiring and install a new outlet. In the meantime, the circuit is off and the crispy critter is outside until I can bury it tomorrow. Never knew something so small could stink so much.

If you've got mice - kill 'em. Kill 'em all. Kill the adults, the babies, the cousins, uncles, anything that walks, wiggles, or crawls. Before then can kill you. If Hanta virus isn't reason enough...

[N0WEK]

I'm still using steel boxes in spite of the cost and increased work. This is only one of the reasons.

That's quite the amazing mess.

[AB3L]

I fought with them a couple of years ago here at home. We have steel boxes for the wiring so didn't have to deal with your particular situation. But....they were in the kitchen drawers.
Finally worked back to the garage doors as their entry point. Our garage is internal at the basement level. So... I put a level across the concrete sill to find a pretty good heave in the middle on one door at a settling crack. That created spaces at the ends for entry and realized that the rubber had chew marks for entry.
I removed the old weather strip at the door bottom, closed the door then used a pencil compass to scribe a line of the sill contour across the door face. Cut it with a jigsaw and reapplied a new weather strip.
So far so good.

Gotta stop 'em where they enter.

Bob

[WD8BIL]

Todd........ build you one of these. Quick n easy with stuff you probably have.
We use one at the cabin......... works great.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Antifreeze+Mouse+Trap&adlt=strict&view=detail&mid=806B92C8DBEBD8AEFCDF806B92C8DBEBD8AEFCDF&FORM=VRDGAR

[W6TOM]

  One cold December day in the early 90's I installed an antenna for a new radio system on a tower in the East Bay Hills in Contra Costa County. When I got done I was very cold but the communications vault on the hilltop was nice and warm. I sat in there for quite some time trying to warm up, my coworker was doing the inside work and made a comment on how cold it was and look at this.

 Inside a Farinon Microwave radio was a mouse nest with momma and all the little kiddies crapping and pissing all over the insides of that nice warm radio!!!

 One also had to be aware of other critters that were attracted by the mice in a hilltop communications site, rattle snakes.

 This little critter slithered into a communications room one hot day, the door had been left open for hours while a crew was doing tower work. My friend was sitting at a desk in the communications room when he said he felt odd. He looked to his right and on the book shelf was this critter. Scared the hell out of him!!!

[w3jn]

Good lord, that's disturbing.  Glad you found the culprit!

I hates meeces to pieces!

[W1RKW]

the damn things got into my A/C unit last year.  I was out back and kept smelling something burning but couldn't pin point it then the zorch.  The AC was arcing against the casing and burning the nest. The critters tore into the compressor wiring. Never had that problem when I had a 4 legged mouse trap. She past on a few years ago.  Got another 4 legged indoor/outdoor mouse trap.

[WBear2GCR]

I'd be cautious about that expanding foam.
Not sure if the mice "like it" or don't .
I know ants seem to love the stuff.

Figgin' meeces!

[KB2WIG]

Stuff copper wool and then 'Great Stuff' or other expanding foam. Cu 'weathers' better than steel wool . The buggers don't like to chew either material.


klc

meow

[wb1ead]

Todd great fun ain't they?..let me clue you and others in on yet another entrance for our furry friends..for over 10 yrs here we had our usual mice invasion with me setting the trap lines like Pasquinal..monthly take was over a dozen pesky rodents in the traps..they LOVE peanut butter BTW..after all that time I put on my Sherlock hat and started doin' some deducing..the biggest haul of whacked bodies seem to be around our pair of laundry machines..the washer and dryer..well well after taking the hint from work buddies about dryer lint fires quite common I decided to tear the dryer apart for a thorough clean out..at the bottom interior of my dryer it looked like mice hotel was alive and well..the critters had been coming into the house via the dryer vent hose all this time..I installed an 1/8 in mesh screening inside the hose outlet and no more mousey..almost 3 yrs now..yup it DOES require me to slide off the hose over the outlet and clean the lint clinging to the screening but that is a small price to pay IMHO
                       Hope that helps and Bear there's been no chewing on any foam used in other areas   73 de DAVE

[W2PFY]

Wow Todd, you had a mess there! I never saw that in an outlet! I think for an arc to happen it would generally required a higher voltage. Years ago I was working for a piano & organ company. In those days everything was tubes and many organs used a hundred or more tubes for tone generation and amplification.

We would get calls that something was smelling inside the organ. Typically inside a Lowery organ there would be several 300 volt busses with an associated ground buss that went the full width of the organ and you guessed it, it was toasted mouse that was the cause! At my camp I was overrun by those Bastxxxx's. I hated to do it but I had to go with those green poison pellets. The only problem now is that the state of NY has outlawed them to Home Depot and Lowes. You have to go to a farm supply house to find the product and they are rat size, so you need to brake them up.

I think you could have sold those small skulls to a New Orleans VooDoo Doctor so I hope you saved them

[Paul, K2ORC]

At the house we owned in rural upstate NY, we battled mice for most of the 30 years we lived there.  They have this amazing ability to flatten their bodies out so they can squeeze through thin, narrow gaps. And when they shuffle off the mortal coil, as Todd and others have discovered, their tiny decomposing bodies produce a stench as powerful as it is unforgettable.

We made the early mistake of trying D-Con bait. A single box will proably kill a battalion - maybe a division - of the little vermin. Trouble is, after eating their fill, your unwanted house guests don't go off to die somewhere beneath a peaceful spreading oak tree. No. They head into the space between your walls.  Soon, the odor of decomposing mouse will make you seriously consider living out of your car - at least until the stink clears.

At one point we even tried a so called sonic mouse repellent device, but it just sat there plugged into the wall doing bupkes while the mice scampered in and out laughing at us.

 I never removed snakes from the area around the house since some species will consume a fair number of mice, at least during the summer.  We had some outdoor barn cats who contributed to the effort, and one of our dogs, a German Shepherd, was good outdoor mouse hunter.

We finally settled on good old spring loaded mouse traps, baited with peanut butter. The mice loved the stuff.  We'd place the baited traps on the foundation sill and always filled our bag.  In fact, sometimes I'd hear the trap snap before I got to the basement stairs.  It was like they lined up to get their necks snapped.

I wish you luck with the box replacement project, Todd. I'm glad they didn't cause a fire.

[W2PFY]

They head into the space between your walls.  Soon, the odor of decomposing mouse will make you seriously consider living out of your car - at least until the stink clears.

I never had that problem but a few seem to be heading for an escape route and died on the way. The other problem now is that I won't take my cat up there which is where she found me, because I am afraid she might consume a poisoned mouse!

[Opcom]

big kitteh fix mices for you.

[Mike/W8BAC]

The bucket trick that Bud/BIL posted really works well. I have used spring traps, Glue traps, poison traps and even cats but for me it's a bucket with 3 inches of water (no need to buy antifreeze) and a toilet paper roll with peanut butter. Mice can't resist the smell. Try it!

[WA2SQQ]

Several years ago the repeater I had on 2M went down. I was using an old GE DO-36 station. I did not take too long to discover that a large centipede found a new home between the contacts of the TR relay! I guess his resume listed his last job as a "conductor" ! It's amazing how these critters are drawn to electricity. I've often wondered why birds congregate on power lines, especially when it's very cold?

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Quite a mess but all cleaned up and working fine since Sunday afternoon.

What I did was:

 - removed old outlet by cutting wires back to clean copper

 - cleaned out outlet box since removal/swapping would've required cutting a hole in wall

 - sprayed expanding foam above and behind box as well as through holes.

 - installed new outlet, wire nut


Since the plastic outlet box is nailed to the stud sideways there was no easy way to remove it. Fortunately there was just a large enough gap between the box and drywall that I could fit the foam straw through. This allowed the foam to cover the top and wrap around the back. Added more from inside to make sure it was sealed. Installed new outlet and all is well. A pretty nasty wake up call though, for sure.

As far as having problems with expanding foam, never had any issues with insects or rodents. They seem to avoid it. In fact, you can now by what appears to be the same foam except with a green label for sealing out rodents, insects and pests. It says NO PESTICIDES INCLUDED or such and costs $4 more per can, otherwise appears identical. So I guess it works okay. Good marketing.

I went the short route temporarily and added some bait blocks in the garage and tool shed, also one under the sink where I found calling cards. But yes Paul, the thought of Oduer de Moussey crossed my mind so I'm going to replace the last one with a trap. Just didn't want them burning the house down in the meantime.

They have hit 2 of the bait blocks outside so far. One other across the garage in a container remains untouched.

TNX for the hints and suggestions, especially the bucket approach. We have a couple big hawks that live around here, waiting for them to return. One used to follow along behind me on the ground when I was raking up leaves, looking for critters. The last cat standing killed his first mouse last week. An infant mouse maybe an inch or two long, but it's a start. The old gang of three used to corner a mouse then sit there and watch it for hours until I removed it. They didn't know what to do with it once they caught it.

[KD6VXI]

Turn the socket over.

Ground pin on the bottom.....   Otherwise,  you get too much stress on it and it ends up getting loose

Plus,  3 pin wall warts are designed with ground pin on bottom.

--Shane
KD6VXI

[KB2WIG]

Ground pin on the bottom.....   Otherwise,  you get too much stress on it and it ends up getting loose......  "

C.


KLC

Victor makes a AA powered death chamber...

[W3GMS]

All those horror stories you've heard about mice eating the insulation off wiring and burning down houses? True.
WRONG. These little creeps want us dead.

From the photo's Todd, it appears that they just mainly did most of the chewing on the neutral wires which are connected to the ground connection back at the service entrance panel.  If they were going to chew anything, I would prefer the neutral rather than the hot side.  Glad you got it squared away.  We live out in the country and have never had a mice problem doing anything like that.  We do have a cat, but she is an indoor cat and kind of elderly at this point. 

I wonder how long this problem has been going on in the house.  I think I would check all the outlet receptacles just to make sure its not a case for the others.   

Joe-GMS   

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

That's the plan, Joe. Especially the outlet directly behind it in what will become the old radio room. Unfortunately there's a glass display case on the floor right now blocking access. But eventually they will all get changed out anyhow as they are the old/ugly 'ivory' color that looks scroungy.

As to the pin up or down orientation, I disagree. It was the lab standard at several places I worked over the years including IBM, for safety reasons. When a plug wiggles loose with its two live blades facing upward and something like a metal straight edge, ruler, or such falls in, problems arise.

It also makes sense from a personal standpoint, having a 4 year old around. Though I have to say - this is my third house and I've used it since 1994 - have never had an outlet loosen up or even a plug come loose. Can't say the same for the more common consumer 'face' approach. Always have plugs falling or otherwise working downward when they're bumped or wiggled. You'd think the two blades would offer more resistance than that one ground pin.

Hey - whatever works for ya....

[KD6VXI]

For me, it's not what works, it's the NEC.  As an electrician, I'm going by code.

Check NEC 406. 

You also have the neutral pin on the wrong side now.

I've gone back on service calls to quite a few places my company has done the electric on and had plugs flipped around by their maintenance department.

This is all moot unless you have an insurance issue.....  They will be the ones going wtf.

--Shane
KD6VXI

[Tom W2ILA]

A family of crows stops by my place every morning to see if I put out a fresh breakfast from the basement mouse traps. Yum.