SuperTrees vs. ... Mice!

[C855B]

I expressed concern in another thread about my artist wife's use of Play-Doh to shape tree armatures, that the flour content would attract mice. This is a concern in our isolated building adjacent to large fields, especially given the onset of cold weather. We have since put that to rest by baiting traps with Play-Doh, with no catches.

HOWever... various test patches of finished SuperTrees and the stash of raw SuperTrees materials were being disturbed, with a couple of smaller trees on the layout "felled" at the base and bits and pieces strewn about. Robyn thought it was mice; not noticing any mouse poop I was skeptical, even suggesting "large spiders" getting into things having captured a couple of impressive arachnids prowling about. So we bought a couple of live traps, baited them with almond butter past its "best by" date. Nothing but the best for our local mousies.

Immediate results. We captured two last night, one in the center of the SuperTrees storage, one in the workshop.

Bottom line is discovery that SuperTrees stems attract mice. Given the pieces spread around it seems they're going after the fronds.

[jpwisc]

Knowing how I treat my Super trees, I can't imagine two layers of Modge Podge with a layer of Rustoluem in between would be a very tasty treat. I have never had any nibbled on (knock on wood).

[CRL]

Might be looking for nesting material.

[nkalanaga]

They'll chew through polystyrene foam, especially beadboard, apparently for nesting material.  In our old house, they hollowed out a hill, made of beadboard, and nested in it.  I didn't know they were there until a started wondering why the track was turning green in the area.  Mice are NOT housebroken, and the liquid waste is corrosive to nickel-silver.

That's part of the reason we moved - the house had so many holes we couldn't keep the mice out.

[DeltaBravo]

They'll chew through polystyrene foam, especially beadboard, apparently for nesting material.  In our old house, they hollowed out a hill, made of beadboard, and nested in it.  I didn't know they were there until a started wondering why the track was turning green in the area.  Mice are NOT housebroken, and the liquid waste is corrosive to nickel-silver.

That's part of the reason we moved - the house had so many holes we couldn't keep the mice out.

Sorry, but this post made me giggle.

[nkalanaga]

It was funny, in a sick kind of way.  The folks who built the house, around 1970, didn't know what they were doing.  The rear wall siding wasn't put on right, which allowed water in, and rotted the sills in my bedroom.  Thus, the floor collapsed, leaving a gap between the floor and the outside walls.  I fixed that by nailing sheet steel around the room, bent into an angle, with sides and floor about 8 inches each.  The mice could still get INTO the walls, though, and we could hear them pushing pieces of dog food up the walls at night, then letting them rattle back to the bottom.  Mice like to have fun...

Since they were in the walls, they could get onto the house, any where they could find, or make a hole in the drywall.  Usually behind something, where we couldn't get to it.  At one time I had 8 mousetraps in my bedroom, and they were still nesting in the dresser drawers.  Around the traps....

The builders also framed the house for one size of windows in the bedrooms, then used a different size.  We found that when we had new siding and windows put in, before the floor collapsed.  The windows they actually used were recycled wood, from a C&O section house.  We know that, because they had "C&O" stamped on the unpainted portions!

We think they ran out of money halfway through, and cut corners to finish.  We bought it about 8 years later, so couldn't see the problems.  It looked good when we moved in.  We moved out 18 years later, and use it for a storage shed.