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Category: rats

Fri. Nov. 8, 2024 – another busy day

Warm, damp, and might rain. I hope not. It threatened most of yesterday but never did rain on me, and it cleared up by afternoon. I drove around with the windows open and it was nice. Had the A/C on too, in the later afternoon when the heat caught up with the humidity.

Spent the day doing domestic bliss. Laundry, taking down some of the decor. I can’t take down anything that’s not really dry. Or I could, but it wouldn’t be smart… so I hope it stays dry today.

Checked the traps while I was in the attic. Turns out I had a small rat in the trap after all. One of the new, tunnel traps, the same one that got the first rat on the first day, got another. He was smaller and didn’t move the tunnel, so I didn’t see him on the cam. Guess I should check more often. In any case, I re-baited the live traps, and the other new tunnel trap. I didn’t clean and reset the first one, I’ll save that for another day. I did take it outside, in a bucket.

Then it was kid taxi service, and a quick trip to the theater when they thought they had an issue with sound. They didn’t really but the kid has his hands full and he didn’t have time to troubleshoot. One of the reasons the shows always sound so bad is that they never give any time to the sound guy to work with the actors and the mics. They don’t have enough rehearsal anyway, barely getting the show blocked before opening, so sound gets short shrift.

Like most things in life, if you don’t take the time, practice, test, and refine, you won’t get a good result.

Today I’ve got an auction pickup or two. I need to buy and assemble a drywall dolly to use when I pick up my new bed. It was $130 to rent one, and $199 to buy, so I’m buying. I’ll use it again. Later in the day I’ll pick up the trailer for the bed too. Lots of running around. AND I’ve got to get some stuff together for my non-prepping hobby quarterly swapmeet on Saturday. I’ll do that, then drive toward the BOL, picking up the bed and some other stuff on the way. Busy, busy, that’s me.

Don’t falter, right?

And find some time to improve your situation. Stacking is easiest.

nick

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Mon. Jun. 10, 2024 – it’s probably rats

Hot today. Back in Houston, so back in the swamp. Not many cool breezes wafting around. Of course it was 113F yesterday afternoon according to the thermometer that gets hit by late afternoon sun. Felt like it too.

When I stopped sweating, I drank more electrolyte replacement…

I did get some stuff done despite the heat. It just took longer, and involved more drinking of water with stuff in it.

I got the cell booster back together. I was able to figure out the spectrum analyzer and got the antenna aimed. Pretty much where I aimed it by eye and cell phone originally. I still don’t have LTE which I did have until one of the power outages. Dunno if the problem is me or ATT although I have it a mile away where I get good signal without a booster, so the tower and site is probably ok. I may poke at it more next visit. I’ve got other antennas to try both indoors and out, but I didn’t have the right adapters.

I mowed. I stacked more downed branches. I fixed the chimney “cap” to be better at keeping the rain out. It’s now plywood and black plastic, instead of just black plastic. Wife and D2 put most of the furniture back in the dockhouse. The walls will stay open for a while, but we still need to use the space, especially with guests coming for the 4th.

I didn’t get to the generator maintenance. It was too hot, and by the time I got ladders cleaned up and put away, and all the tools back in the garage, I didn’t have time. I did do a little sorting and putting away, as part of looking for stuff that I needed. Like goes with like…

Which is how I organize the stacks. It works for me, and I can find stuff I haven’t used in years, if I haven’t moved it too much. Cleaning and organizing always has some risks for me as I might remember the old place it lived for years, but forget the new “better” place it’s only been for a few months. Stacks are most useful when you can find the thing you stacked.

Even if you have to look for it, stacks are good.

Today will be finding the cause of the dead rat odor in the house (probably a dead rat) and doing some of the stuff that has been back-burnered by disaster recovery. I’ve got a lot of repair to do, auction stuff, pickups, kid “enrichment” activities, all the usual stuff.

And I feel the need to . . .

Stack!

nick

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Mon. Jun. 3, 2024 – in which our hero does work over again, because he’s a procrastinator

Hot and humid. Houston summer. Probably. Like yesterday.

Spent yesterday NOT doing the work I needed to do. Maybe that was for the best, but probably not. I did find a spot on the laundry room ceiling (where the critter sometimes made noise) that has moisture bleeding through from the attic, staining the drywall. There is what looks like mold around the edges of the temporary patch too… Something either died up there, or there is a leak in the plumbing work that we had the ceiling open for originally. Either way, it was an unpleasant discovery and will be getting worse when I open it up to deal with it. Honestly might not happen today. It’s a full PPE and clear everything soft out of the room kinda thing, and I don’t have time.

Because I’ll be dealing with truck issues, trying to get registration taken care of. First I need to get inspected again. Both trucks. Then I need to actually do the standing in line and begging forgiveness, while paying the penalties. No, I don’t like it. I really get bothered when I am forced to interact with the machinery of “state” this way. They just keep glomming on and glomming on to more authority, and increasing the severity of not acknowledging their power grab, and it angers me on a very deep level. It’s a reminder that we aren’t free. That we don’t own our own property. And that they can and will use force to MAKE us do what they want. They start by requiring a yearly fee and a marker tag to use your own property, and they end telling you how to worship your God. Eventually they will insist you worship theirs under penalty of death.

Nothing is ever “enough” for the fanatic, and the fanatics are the ones who rise to power.

Avoid coming to their notice.

n

(and stack)

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Sun. Jun. 2, 2024 – in the summertime, the livin’s easy…

Hot and humid. Possibility of rain. Possibility of scorching sun. It was nice yesterday at the BOL, with a cool breeze in the shade, and brain boiling heat in the sun… while Houston got some cooling rain.

I did get a bunch of work done at the BOL. Cleaned up almost all the remaining downed branches, cut up logs, and other debris. Now I have 3 burn piles as tall as me… Cleaned up the demo debris from the dockhouse. Reset the A/C in the dockhouse after the power failure. I’m running it 24/7 to help dry out the wood. Mowed the grass. Put most of the patio furniture back after moving it out of the way for the tree guy. Put away all the solar stuff I’d brought to Houston, and did some general cleaning up and putting away.

It was enough to fill the day.

Today I’m home in Houston and will be doing storm recovery stuff. I need to make repairs to our driveway gate, back fence, and some other things. I’ve got to get stuff back where it belongs, and sort some stuff out. I should do something about the rat situation, and my general pile of stuff that needs attention…

After resting and getting a slow start… if it’s hot.

Stacks. I got ’em. You should too.
n

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Mon. Apr. 29, 2024 – home again, still got stuff to do…

Wet and warm. Whether it’s still raining, or just the soggy aftermath, it’s gonna be wet today. It was raining when I went to bed, and had been for hours. Not crazy hard, but steadily enough.

Spent Sunday wrapping up at the BOL. The forecast was for bad storms, so wife and kids bailed early to beat the rain. I stayed to do a few things I didn’t get done. After a brief light rain, it cleared up and was a nice day for most of the afternoon. I got several things done, and made progress on a couple more. Then the rain started again, and it was time to head home. LOTS of rain on the way home. Several tornado warnings, and local flooding… lots of people had a bad day, but I dodged most of it.

Today I need to make some progress on my lists here. First off, the rat problem didn’t solve itself. I am going to have to block some more access, mainly through the soffits and the breezeway that links the house attic to the garage attic. My neighbor paid a pest control company $1200 to do the same blocking I’m thinking about. It’s a huge pain in the butt, which is why I’ve put off doing it. But the rats aren’t going for the traps or poison, so I need to step up a bit. It won’t get done today, but maybe I can do some exploration.

I’ve got other paperwork stuff to do, and this week will be busy with stuff too. I should visit my client for a new issue and get him back up. And I’ve got a friend moving away that has been storing some tools for me, that I have to sort out. One of them is a laser sintering 3D printer, which is about 7ft x 5ft x 7ft, and includes a dozen barrels of powder, and a sifting and cleaning station that is 4ft x 4ft x 7ft. I don’t have anywhere to PUT the stuff, which is why it was at his place. Time to sell the powder and break down the printer. We should end up with parts for a 30w engraver. Getting the powder sinter machine to work ended up being too big a job, given where we had to do it. We couldn’t meet the power requirements, or the need for nitrogen gas to fill the build chamber. And neither of us had the time available that we thought we would.

All the normal stuff will be happening this week too, so it should be a busy and full week.

It’s a great life if you don’t falter, right?

So don’t falter. Stack.

nick

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Tues. Apr. 23, 2024 – time to make the donuts..

Cool again, and probably clear. The national forecast has some stuff south of us, and we’re on the edge of it, which usually means we don’t get the bad stuff. Lots of stuff blows up from the Gulf though, so we might get some rain after all. Say it with me, “We’ll see…”

I spent yesterday mostly cleaning, sorting, and piling stuff for the auction, stuff from my office, and just stuff. I also cut my hair and shaved. Picked up the kid around 3 and got to the chiropractor and Costco for my paper towels. I am making progress cleaning out my office and bedroom. I’ve piled stuff everywhere and it’s time to move it. Long past time really. As part of that I sorted and put away receipts from auctions, and in the process found some I needed for other stuff. Also refreshed my mind regarding what I paid for a few things, especially things I though I’d sell. Time to do that.

The rat traps haven’t caught anything. My wife says she heard movement in the attic, but I guess I’ve raised a local colony that won’t touch peanut butter. Everyone says they can’t resist the peanut butter, but these rats do. You have to kill them quickly before they warn their compatriots. That is hard earned wisdom folks. Or something anyway.

I was going to do pickups today but it makes more sense to delay until tomorrow. That way I can combine the longest trip with a bunch of shorter ones, and get the most efficient route. The longest trip wasn’t available for pickup today.

I’ll continue with my house clean/organize/get ready to sell stuff plan. It’s not often that I get three days of consistent effort on one task when I’m at home. Even now, I’m tempted to mow the back yard, or switch to garage or driveway cleanup… but pushing through inside makes the most sense. I will need to do one dropoff and I’ll likely do one pickup too. Kids will need rides earlier rather than later, so I need to be home to do that, which limits my excursion time too.

It’s Spring, so Spring cleaning is appropriate. It’ll make more room for stacking!

nick

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Sat. Apr. 20, 2024 – 4-20 happy stoner day, or something…

Another day of warm and moist, and probably even wet… forecast here calls for moderate rain and gentle breezes. Wife and D2 will be at the BOL and she says they are predicting heavy rain and stormy weather…

They are going up with a couple of D2’s friends for a girl’s weekend. I’m home with D1. I’ve got work to do, she has a Girl Scout thing…

Spent yesterday cleaning and sorting, and doing pickups. Also doing some rat proofing. I found several bait boxes outside that were empty so I’ll refill those. The attic ones were untouched. I think I found the route in, at least on one side of the house. The siding has a corner trim that is hollow inside. One of the places I heard scrabbling has a corner molding, and there are chew marks and a hole at the top, which leads into the soffit. There was some black belly dirt on the vinyl soffit material showing that something was moving between the vinyl and the plywood, a one inch space. I covered the hole with hardware cloth (stiff wire mesh), rolled and shaped hardware cloth plugs for each end of the trim piece, used the mesh to completely fill the 1″ space the width of the soffit, and then sprayfoamed the mesh to hold it in place and fill the voids. They can chew through the foam, but the sharp mesh roll inside should discourage them.

I found a “mousehole” behind the washing machine, where something has been coming out of the wall to eat the dog’s food at night. Plugged that with 3 inches of rolled up mesh, and foam. I also found some holes in the wall that were around plumbing under the sink in the kitchen, that looked like they were enlarged and smoothed by teeth. Meshed that all up too. No foam there, because of the need to access the plumbing in the wall later. The Hav-a-heart live traps in the attic are untouched. I’ll set some modified snap traps today. With the access to the dog food cut off, they should be interested in baited traps.

In other news, my grapevine has set fruit, lots of it. This year I’m going to try some bird netting around it to try to save some for us. The lime tree in a pot is setting fruit too. The peach tree finally gave up. It is completely dead and broke off at ground level. Never got a single fruit from that tree. The apple tree isn’t vigorous and is late getting leaves and blooms. I might move it to the BOL. All but one or two of my blueberry bushes have died too. I’ll move any survivors to the BOL to join the newly planted bushes. They never were very vigorous or productive here. Collards are still growing, this is the third season for the same plants, I think. Could be the fourth.

In the last couple of days I also broke down and froze about 30 pounds of meat. Freezers are full. It’s a good feeling.

Today I’ll be doing more stuff around the house. I have to redo the repair to the tub. The cleaning crew scrubbed and chipped the epoxy away. Either they work far to hard or I didn’t get as good a bond as I thought. Still sucks to have to redo work.

It would also be nice to get the 3D printers all set up in their new spot in the “toy” room. That’s the room we use as a library and catch all. Wife suggested a narrow table against a wall to put the machines on and I am willing to oblige. I don’t want to set up the laser engraver until I have an enclosure however. I won one this week but it was missing when I did my pickup so they’ll either find it or I’ll bid on one in some other auction. It’s the second time I was bidding on one. I know I could make one but I don’t need another project. Just getting the printers running will be project enough, then getting kid 2 set up with a toolchain so she can make stuff will take even more time. Besides the obvious benefit of having the machines running, it will get stuff out of piles, corners, and stacks, and into one organized place. First I need to clear a space for the table, then I need to assemble the table… Fractal are the projects at Casa De Nick…

It will be a chance to learn some new things. That’s always good. And the kid has an interest, which is also good.

Try some new things. I can guarantee that actually doing it will be different than thinking about doing it.

And stack of course.

nick

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Fri. Apr. 19, 2024 – and another week rolls by, the world gets crazier…

Warm, moist, dark. Some chance of rain later in the day. So say the liars. Dunno what we’ll get but I’ll be sure to be inconvenienced by it… I spent most of yesterday doing indoor stuff anyway, but it was nice in the afternoon.

Did a bunch of sorting, cleaning, and work avoidance techniques to keep from crawling around in the attic. That is going to change today, as D1 saw something skitter across the kitchen floor last night. Small and fast. Attic I can live with. In the house? No. HeII no. More traps, more poison, more wire mesh covering holes. Whatever it takes.

So that is the mission for today. And doing a pickup or two. And sorting and putting away, with a stop at my secondary to get Bounty paper towels while dropping some stuff off. Costco was completely out of Bounty paper towels yesterday. I’ve got some in deep storage and I’m going by there anyway…

Later there is some kid stuff to do at her school. Then the wife and D2 head to the BOL with friends for a girls’ weekend while I stay home and catch up on the list.

I have to pull my head out and get some stuff done. I’m falling behind and it isn’t good.

Oh, the freezers are full, and the pantry is in good shape, but other stuff needs attention too. So stack, but don’t forget the other stuff…

nick

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Thur. Apr. 18, 2024 – getting stuff done, slowly, and in fits and starts…

Warm, damp, and dark. Should start the day in the mid 70s, and with overcast or clouds. The ‘damp’ part is just Houston. That’s how yesterday played out too, always on the verge of rain, but never delivering.

I did my big loop of auction houses, and got all the stuff I wanted to pick up picked up… did my drop off at my local auctioneer too. Even stopped at HEB to see if they had meat on sale. The did, so I bought some steak, and some pork ribs. My receipt said my savings were about $50 with spending of $200. I’m still buying stuff that isn’t just basics (like snacks for the kids’ lunches, soda, treats) but it’s starting to add up. I know there are others who feel the pinch more than I do. If I wasn’t able to save on all the stuff I buy at deep discounts, I’d be cutting way back on those relatively expensive items. My wife has expressed her shock and dismay several times lately when I came home with the grocery bills…

30 to 50% increases aren’t just happening to other people.

————————————————————————————————

Today should be more domestic bliss. I’m going to make a more indepth attempt to find the invaders in the attic. I want to shut down their access, but can’t find it. I don’t see evidence in the attic itself, so I’ll look more closely at the soffits or ‘eves’ which are below the floor level in the attic. They are like wide open highways around the house, and I suspect that is the main path for rodents. They do cross the open attic, as I can hear them occasionally. I wonder if they are tunneling through the insulation, so their path isn’t obvious. If it’s rats, they’ve learned not to eat the poison bait, or the bait has somehow become ineffective. They used to love the stuff, eating through the packaging in the garage to get to it. Now it has been sitting in the boxes for months.

If they are using the soffits, they can enter through the garage. I’m not sure how I’ll stop them physically as the garage has several large openings and the garage attic is completely open to the framing and soffits. I’ve been counting on the poison for the last couple of years and it was working. Something changed, as I can hear the movement, even if I can’t figure out where they are.

My wife has been more patient than anyone could expect as I’ve tried to get rid of the problem, but that is wearing thin.

Guess I have a new issue at the top of my list…

Plans. I make them. Then I break them.

One thing is constant though, accumulating resources– stacking. At least we can all do that.

nick

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Tues. Apr. 16, 2026 – more messing around to do

Cool and cloudy to start, then warming later. And some wind- “fresh” in the words of openweathermap.org. It was blowing all over last night.

Yesterday I did my doctor appointment. I like him, he’s just a bit younger than me, but the current nonsense over any meds used to treat pain is nuts. I take a simple med for chronic back pain. It’s not abuse-able, has a long and well understood history, is cheap, and is an NSAID with minimal side effects. I’ve been on it every day for about 15 years. It works for me. So why change? Why the intrusive nonsense about renewal? The office wanted a contract like I was a barely under control junkie mandating monitoring, blood tests, when and how I could refill, all sorts of nonsense for a drug that ISN’T controlled, ISN’T abuse-able, and technically ISN’T a painkiller. I pushed back with increasing firmness until he admitted all the above, and agreed I didn’t need the stupid contract.

I’m going back to the way I got it for years. F this S, I will not have my ability to control my pain and ability to work and do stuff at the mercy of a just in time delivery system, especially considering that it’s essentially Motrin, and in any sane place would be over the counter. I thought this guy was more reasonable. Guess not.

After that, I did some shopping and one pickup. Did a bunch of cleaning and moving stuff around while waiting for my chauffeur duty to be called upon. Did some more after. Tripped and fell over the child gate we use to keep the dog out of the bedrooms. Smashed myself and the gate up. Bought another in the auction last night. They always have child gates for some reason. So it was a mixed bag yesterday. I did get some stuff done, but was frustrated and stomping around, both metaphorically and in reality.

Today I’ve got several pickups to do. That should keep me busy until I have to get the kid from school. STAAR testing this week so no afterschool activities. That means a short day for me too.

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Traps in the attic haven’t caught anything. I’ll have to try some different bait. The poison boxes are untouched too, but I still hear scurrying at times. SOMETHING is up there. Possums usually go for the traps, rats usually eat the poison. I guess it could be squirrels…

Stack some poison, traps, insecticide, and the like. You may not be able to get them when you need them. Stack the other things you need to be comfortable too.

nick

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