# Stolen preps!



## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

field mice! little rat bastards! So they were having a grand old time eating spaghetti and some ramen noodles, and they didnt eat the rice but they pissed and shit all over some of the bags so now I basically have to throw all of that away right? 

I should have planned that out better


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## Erick3758 (Aug 9, 2011)

I vacuum seal bags and put them in totes. Seems to work good.i would replace the stuff. Noodles are not to costly.


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## mpguy18 (Sep 7, 2011)

Were these for long term storage items, or short term? When we store anything for long term in totes, buckets, etc. we wash the outside of the containers with a bleech/water mix. It will eliminate any food smell on the outside. Had to learn this one the hard way. Sorry to hear about your preps!


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## Outpost (Nov 26, 2012)

Dakine said:


> field mice! little rat bastards! So they were having a grand old time eating spaghetti and some ramen noodles, and they didnt eat the rice but they pissed and shit all over some of the bags so now I basically have to throw all of that away right?
> 
> I should have planned that out better


Oh Man!
I know what those little bastards can do!!!!!

Where I live is right next to a swamp (alright alright.... a "wetland area").

The place is full of mice and voles. When the water rises or the temperature drops, those little buggers start taking refuge right here in the outpost!

They gnaw right through anything in plastic, and that includes gamma-sealed plastic buckets. Some would have you believe that if there's no smell, they won't be paying any attention to it. Let me tell you from *first freakin' hand* experience, that isn't true!

First of all, plastic *has* a smell. It may not smell like food, but it's different enough to attract their attention. They've gnawed through my plastic buckets, my plastic-wrapped-hermetically-sealed foods, and even cost me 5 gallons of gasoline from chewing through the plastic gas-cans a couple winters ago! They've chewed through electrical cables, and my cable-TV cable!

The only thing I've been able to come up with is this;
Metal cabinets....
Find old metal cabinets. They don't have to be thick bullet-proof metal. They just need to be the old thin metal storage cabinets with doors. As long as there's no holes in them, they'll keep out the rodents....

It's a constant freakin' battle though!

Good luck!


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## GrinnanBarrett (Aug 31, 2012)

Animals are going to get into about anything you throw at them. Five and Six gallon buckets with gamma lids are a bit too tough for them. Raccoons will pry open a lid and get into pet food containers all the time. Don't use file cabinets since the bottoms are open and mice will find a way to get up into them. When storing food remember air tight is what you want inside Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers and air tight and sealed containers. NEVER use Rubbermaid type containers since the lids come off to easily and they are not air tight to begin with. Use Rubbermaid stuff for canned goods. GB


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## boomer (Jul 13, 2011)

We have finally got our kitchen converted to old Youngstown metal kitchen cabinets. We have added bird wire with 1/4" mesh to all spaces that even baby mice could get through. Other stuff gets stored in metal bread boxes on shelves, and glass and or metal containers of all sorts of shapes and sizes. We get most of these containers from the local thrift store. If they are scratched or rusted I wax them. 

Our dogs keep the racoons out of the cabinets and the buildings where other racoon accessable things are kept are locked.


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

Have you considered getting a cat?


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## jsriley5 (Sep 22, 2012)

Yup lived in farm land all my life rodents are a constant battle especially every winter or any really rainy seasons. Glass jars are good got keep em off the darn lids though or they will piss all over and cause em to rust. The metal cabinets are the best suggestion I"ve seen and used. but you have to keep em in good shape bends can leave tiny lil gaps and youd be amazed the size a gap a mouse can squeeze into. Grandma always said anywhere their nose can go the rest of it can follow. She's pretty darn close to right. We used lots of Tins and when the popcorn tins were popular we collected a ton of the the things wish the big nearly 5 gallon sized ones would come back those were excellent until they all started shinking a little every year and then making stacking more of a pain. Grandman had lots and lots of the candy and cookie tins that used to be popular many years ago and even some cracker tins. She also had an actual Bread box bout the size of a microwave and her ugly avacado gren to match the rest of her kitchen  I have a couple 80 gallon drums that have lids that come off and seal on with a snap ring I have used them for years to keep em out of my hunting clothes and toilet paper stocks. Wish I could find a couple dozen more of those they are about perfect for "our" needs.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

BlueZ said:


> Have you considered getting a cat?


She does a good job inside the house, but the garage is not attached, and I dont want to add cat spray aroma to lovely images of rodent droppings all over the stuff that was in the garage o.0


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## Homegrowngirl (Apr 19, 2011)

Anything long term, flour, noodles, rice, beans all get vac sealed and stored in totes. Learned the hard way when the little varmits raided my dried beans one year. Also helps with keeping any bugs out.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

That sucks!
Out on the farm rodents are a constant issue, obviously it is best to have things in bins or glass etc but sometimes stuff happens. Galvanized trash cans are cheap for sacks or loose stuff btw.
We have a lot of outside cats, they help prevent them from getting established most of the time. In places we can't have cats and have AC power I have found those ultrasonic things to work good for prevention, not treatment.
At least it is not an emergency situation.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

I live in inland Australia, we have the occasional mouse plague (do a youtube search for Australian mouse plague, lol) All my stores are in glass or metal, I have a steel cabinet for anything I don't want to put into containers. We have farm cats to keep the numbers down in normal years, they have access to my store room through a cat door that can be locked if we want to keep them out. We have had a few rats this year in the barn as well, damn things, so we've got two whippet pups to control them (they are amazing ratters but will take down larger game as well). The rodent controls we use are the same as the ones we'll use if the SHTF.


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## Outpost (Nov 26, 2012)

Wellrounded said:


> I live in inland Australia, we have the occasional mouse plague (do a youtube search for Australian mouse plague, lol) All my stores are in glass or metal, I have a steel cabinet for anything I don't want to put into containers. We have farm cats to keep the numbers down in normal years, they have access to my store room through a cat door that can be locked if we want to keep them out. We have had a few rats this year in the barn as well, damn things, so we've got two whippet pups to control them (they are amazing ratters but will take down larger game as well). The rodent controls we use are the same as the ones we'll use if the SHTF.


Holy Crap!!!!!!

I've seen some of those videos! From a distance, they actually look like a rippling liquid!

My mouse issues are *NOTHING* compare to that!

My heart goes out to ya pal!!!!!!

...anyway...
The plastic tubs are great, but I'm looking for cheap metal cabinets to put those tubs in. Gotta' find some smaller metal boxes to stuff around the house in other places.

Funny thing... the stuff in our kitchen very rarely gets touched. Too much traffic I guess. But try to tuck something away in a closet for a week or so...... it starts turning into rodent exhaust..... (or dissolved by he urine... even the glass jars aren't safe from that!)

...real pains in the ass....


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Outpost said:


> Holy Crap!!!!!!
> 
> I've seen some of those videos! From a distance, they actually look like a rippling liquid!
> 
> ...


It's the smell that gets to me. You can put stores behind metal but everything else you own smells like mouse pee or dead mouse. You only wear clothes that you bring in from the clothes line, you can hear them inside your furniture..... When I was growing up mum and dad were in the process of building a house (for a year or two, lol.) and we were living in tents or sheds, I could hear mice in my mattress and they'll chew your hair while you sleep. One year driving through South Australia we traveled more than 200 miles driving over red squashed mouse bodies inches thick on the road, can you imagine the stink! It's hard to imagine what it's like living through it.


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## HoppeEL4 (Dec 29, 2010)

Oh...wellrounded, that sounds awful! I have a 12 year old male cat, neutered, although he sprays anyways, but he is the best rodent catcher in this area hands down. I have seen him in action and it is amazing. He stand stock still, moves only when necessary and very slowly, one movement at a time, then he pounces like a lightning bolt. Comes up out of the tall grass with a huge fat vole. He has left half eaten wild rabbits on the patio. I have also seem him dig up moles too.

One day he caught so many voles, and attempted to consume them, he threw them up in the house...yeah that was completely sickening. However, that aside, and of course the constant maintenance of flea and parasite killers for him (since he is so exposed to them), he keeps away all vermin. When we moved into this house, the garage was covered in mouse droppings, no more.

We do have another male cat, he is a good hunter, does not eat his kill, only plays with it, but at least he is killing them (sporadically I think).

BTW, the oldest cat is a tuxedo..I have noticed they seem to be really good hunters. I am not sure why, or if it has been a fluke I had two so far that were?

I am a firm believer that where there is a mouse problem, you need a male cat, they spray, the mice do smell it. Now mind you, our 12 year old is well trained, he knows it's a no-no to do it in the house, he just nails the whole outdoors, and I am ok with it, as anywhere we have lived we do not have rodents.


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

GrinnanBarrett said:


> Animals are going to get into about anything you throw at them. Five and Six gallon buckets with gamma lids are a bit too tough for them. Raccoons will pry open a lid and get into pet food containers all the time. Don't use file cabinets since the bottoms are open and mice will find a way to get up into them. When storing food remember air tight is what you want inside Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers and air tight and sealed containers. NEVER use Rubbermaid type containers since the lids come off to easily and they are not air tight to begin with. Use Rubbermaid stuff for canned goods. GB


I have first hand experience that the Vittles Vaults with the gamma seals will keep a raccoon out of dog food. A raccoon has been sleeping in my parents' garage during the colder days and that is where they keep the 50lb VV with the dog food. My mom walked into the garage and found her shelves and pantry ripped apart and the little devil made his nest in her cleaning rag basket. The VV was on its side and the lid had been gnawed on and scratched but not broken into. Yeah, that stinker got into 40% of her food storage in the garage and her bird seed bin. (she seeds feeders so her dogs have entertainment while she is at work.)


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

HoppeEL4 said:


> Oh...wellrounded, that sounds awful! I have a 12 year old male cat, neutered, although he sprays anyways, but he is the best rodent catcher in this area hands down. I have seen him in action and it is amazing. He stand stock still, moves only when necessary and very slowly, one movement at a time, then he pounces like a lightning bolt. Comes up out of the tall grass with a huge fat vole. He has left half eaten wild rabbits on the patio. I have also seem him dig up moles too.
> 
> One day he caught so many voles, and attempted to consume them, he threw them up in the house...yeah that was completely sickening. However, that aside, and of course the constant maintenance of flea and parasite killers for him (since he is so exposed to them), he keeps away all vermin. When we moved into this house, the garage was covered in mouse droppings, no more.
> 
> ...


Our female cats are the pest patrol here. The oldest 3 are the best. The younger female and our tom are clueless. I could train them the way I trained the others- feeder mouse in the bathtub and toss the cat in and lock the door til the noise stops. Actually, I bred fancy mice and the 3 girls would hunt down the escapees. I set up the cages with tunnels that spanned the breeding room and the cats would just chase them through the tunnels for hours.


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## dixiemama (Nov 28, 2012)

My inlaws have a big mouse problem. My mil is deathly afraid of them; I've actually seen her climb on top of their kitchen table when my dog went through the house cuz she didn't have her glasses and thought he was a big rat (he's a 4lb min pin). They do absolutely nothing for the problem tho. Their home is close to 80 years old and falling apart. You have to wash EVERYTHING before using it. They are of the 'there's nothing to do about it, been happening this long, nobody's sick, why do anything about it' mindset although I've prob killed half the rainforest in paper giving them research to the contrary. 

We have outside, intact males-3. They are great mousers, not so much on snakes, but the only ones I've seen in the past few years were gopher snakes so they take care of our gardens. I store things in Rubbermaid totes in vacuum bags with no problems. And the damnedest thing? I live beside my inlaws and I've never had a mouse inside our out buildings, garage or home.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

I purchase large(ish) boxes of mouse / rodent poisons and I just open up the boxes enough for the rodents to get into them and leave the whole box in key areas around my yard - each shed has at least one box, my under-deck-area has at least one box, my garage has a box placed near the left and right side of the garage-door ... 

A friend of mine is an exterminator and he has researched rodents and the like for years. A couple of things that he has told me is that the majority of mice live their entire life in an area of 100'sq (ten feet up by ten feet wide). If you can control the mouse population from getting into that 100' area around your house, they will never get into your house.

The other major thing is that mice do not drink water.

One trick that I learned is that you can take a 5-gallon bucket, half-fill it with water and glycol (engine anti-freeze) and then run a string (rope) over the top with a light-weight piece of pvc-pipe strung up. Smear peanut-butter around the middle of the pvc pipe - the mouse will climb the string, onto the pvc and when it starts licking the peanut butter, it will fall into the water and drown ... :2thumb:


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## MetalPrepper (Nov 25, 2012)

We live on a lake, in the woods....lots of mice and voles. We do not use poison because I have seen what that does to raptors when they eat a mouse that has been poisoned. Somehow they have gotten into our basement, though we can not figure out how. We set traps. I only store jars, cans and sealed buckets. I know they can eat through plastic, but they seem to like peanut butter better than plastic or what may be inside of it, so they have been meeting their maker before they meet my stored food...
We were using the humane traps and releasing them but they don't seem to like them as much as they like getting their heads smashed in....not sure why...but they are mice...


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## HoppeEL4 (Dec 29, 2010)

I would not use humane traps for mice, it is just helping the popultaion problem. As for poisoning them I agree, we fear seeing it hurt our cats, and of course we would not want the local hawks and owls to get sick or die (they are important). We use those M130 - QUICKSET MOUSE TRAP's, they work like a charm and no poison is involved. We were having to do this because we were storing our chicken feed in the pumhouse where there is a big problem, and didn't want our territorial male in there spraying things, so we'd set the traps. We were averaging around 6 mice a week.


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## Magus (Dec 1, 2008)

Dakine said:


> field mice! little rat bastards! So they were having a grand old time eating spaghetti and some ramen noodles, and they didnt eat the rice but they pissed and shit all over some of the bags so now I basically have to throw all of that away right?
> 
> I should have planned that out better


40mm grenade cans keeps them out nicely, bugs too!


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## cnsper (Sep 20, 2012)

Peppermint oil and cotton balls. Just soak the cotton balls and put them around the garage will keep them out. They can not smell anything but the peppermint. Works on vehicles too when placed under the hood and seat.

Another thing if you do not happen to like cats is Buckeye Chickens. They are good mousers when allowed to free range.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Magus said:


> 40mm grenade cans keeps them out nicely, bugs too!


First use 40mm's to reduce their population, then the cans.


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

I actually do have some ammo cans that are from rockets I think. After seeing that they wanted the spaghetti I'm going to start breaking down cardboard boxes and vacuum sealing like products together and put those into these huge ammo cans.

If that doesn't work I'm going to get my Carl Spackler on... au revoir gopher! And that's all she wrote!!!


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## Halloween (Nov 24, 2012)

Buy a Tom cat!


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