The smell of a decomposing mouse somewhere forward of the firewall

That dead mouse is, as someone else pointed out, probably
inside the heat muff against the muffler, along with his nest, and the
next time you go flying the nest materials could catch fire and make
life too interesting. At least it would finish off the dead-mouse odor.
I used to use mothballs, until successive generations of the
little beasts got used to the smell and made their home inside my
airplane anyway. Now I use the poisonous bar bait, which works well but
might also be killing the airport cat, who helps control the mouse
population and could catch and eat poisoned mice before they're dead.
Oh well, there's never any shortage of stray cats.
I once watched a cat chase a mouse, corner it, and the
terrified rodent jumped well over two feet into the air over the cat to
escape it. They don't have to climb when they can jump like that. They
jump into our garbage cans here in the shop, those big backyard cans
which are about two feet high, and if there's not a lot of loose stuff
in the can they jump out again after filling up on scraps.
Someone needs to invent an electrocution-type trap for hangars.
I had ideas for an air-powered cannon that might have a breech trap
that would close after the mouse entered it, and an
electronically-controlled valve would shoot compressed air from our
shop compressor and blast him through the barrel (which would be
permanently installed in the shop wall) out into orbit. The airport cat
would have his house inside the landing zone.

Dan

I just got rid of a mouse in my house after a 3-month battle. After trying
every trap available at the hardware store, I resorted using D-Con poison as
a last resort--damn the smell. I was very lucky in that the mouse decided to
use my foyer floor as a deathbed. Scared the hell out of my wife but it
allowed me to get rid of it right before it died. The poisons use an
anti-coagulant that makes them bleed internally so death is not instant.

My observations (both first-hand and through research):
- Mice can become trap-shy rendering the traps ineffective. The one in my
house got caught in a glue-trap the first day I set it but got loose. Every
subsequent trap application was ineffective for that particular mouse.
- Sealing a house is difficult and probably not feasible for a T-hangar.
- Females typically nest in preparation for birth. The smell could be
augmented by a bunch of little ones.

My only suggestion after you find the dead mouse is to keep a fresh supply
of poison around the walls of the T-hangar. Any new ones will hopefully find
them and become victim to them first before they find their way into the
airplane. The circle of glue traps around the wheels may help but unless you
have a big rodent population, the traps will probably get dirty before long
rendering them useless. I watched as the mouse ran over my "wall of glue
traps" one day so it would have to be a pretty significant "wall" around
your wheels not to mention another checklist item.

Good luck,

Marco

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
JJS jschneider@remove socks cebridge.net wrote:

I'm not very familiar with Bo's, but on my Cherokee we found a mouse
nest
in the heat muff around the muffler once.
Take a look there if you haven't.

Thanks. That is the area we suspect is housing the mouse.

--
Peter



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Marco Leon mmleonyahoo.com wrote:

My only suggestion after you find the dead mouse is to keep a fresh supply
of poison around the walls of the T-hangar.

Thanks, Marco, for the suggestions. I had set two D-Con poison baits along
the back wall of the T-hangar and two days later one was completely empty
and the other one disappeared??? The next two fresh packs I set to
replace the empty one were still full a week later, so it appears that the
population may have been temporarily controlled.

One interesting point raised by my mechanic is that normally here in the
Northeast US, temperatures are typically cold enough that mice are in some
type of hibernation.

However, this year we are experiencing a much warmer than average winter
(much to the disappointment of power companies and their huge increase in
natural gas heating prices) and this is allowing the mice to remain active.

--
Peter

In article ,
"Peter R." wrote:

Marco Leon mmleonyahoo.com wrote:

My only suggestion after you find the dead mouse is to keep a fresh supply
of poison around the walls of the T-hangar.

Thanks, Marco, for the suggestions. I had set two D-Con poison baits along
the back wall of the T-hangar and two days later one was completely empty
and the other one disappeared??? The next two fresh packs I set to
replace the empty one were still full a week later, so it appears that the
population may have been temporarily controlled.

One interesting point raised by my mechanic is that normally here in the
Northeast US, temperatures are typically cold enough that mice are in some
type of hibernation.

However, this year we are experiencing a much warmer than average winter
(much to the disappointment of power companies and their huge increase in
natural gas heating prices) and this is allowing the mice to remain active.

Another thing that mice LOVE is peanut butter! Mix some poison with that.

--
Remve "_" from email to reply to me personally.