Get Set Gazette On-Line News from Get Set, Inc. November, 2000 Edition

Rodent Proofing for Fall

It’s fall and cooler temperatures are settling in. That means mice and rats are heading indoors. As rodents look for winter harborage, human dwellings, schools and other buildings start to feel the pressure of encroaching rodents.

Agile and adaptable, commensal rodents enter buildings any way that they can. They squeeze through spaces as big as their heads: mice need only 1/4", young rats, 1/2". Anywhere a pencil fits through an opening, a mouse can too.

Rodent Entranceways

Rodents can enter dwellings in multiple ways. They arrive via ventilation grills, sidewalk gratings and large sidewalk cracks. They gnaw through wooden doors and crawl into spaces where pipes meet woodsiding. They scale bricks, vertical wires, pipes and tree limbs. Rats burrow under foundations of building lacking basements. Rodents also get into hollow walls between floors and floor sills. They can also hide in pallets, upholstered furniture or shipments and they rush in through (propped) open doors. They easily come inside through defective drain pipes, travelling inside the pipe or burrowing alongside it. They also easily pass through unpatched, vertical and horizontal cracks in doors and windows.

Exclusion Materials

A series of materials will help you keep rodents out of your buildings: 1) Galvanized, stainless or other non-rusting metals: a) sheet metals 24 gauge or higher; b) expanded metal, 28 gauge or or higher; c) perforated metals, 24 gauge or higher, and d) hardware cloth, 19 gauge or higher with 1/4" or less mesh. 2) Cement mortar: 1 part cement, 3 parts sand mix or richer. 3) Concrete: 1 part cement, 2 parts gravel, 4 parts sand mix or richer. Adding broken glass to mortar or cement will deter most rodents from burrowing through the patched area as it dries. 4) Door sweeps and gaskets: They also stop the wind and cold from entering your buildings!

Examples of Rodent Proofing

Creative use of materials combined with knowledge of rodent behvior will help you exclude rodents from your buildings. Here are a few ways to use the materials for rodent proofing. Patch holes around plumbing with concrete or mortar. Cover a drain, vent or chimney with 1/4" hardware cloth. Along the bottom of a door, use sheet metal flashing or door sweeps. Place a metal, circular rat guard on a drain to prevent rats from wedging themselves between the building and the pipe to crawl upwards.

Rodent Re-entrance

Keep an eye out for new holes and tunnels into buildings a week or two after the building has been initially sealed up. Efforts by rats and mice to return to old feeding grounds will be strongest then.

– Adapted from University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Science and "Rats and Mice," Bobby corrigan, Handbook of Pest Control

Not Nice to Lice: We have
just received an independent laboratory analysis of Not Nice to Lice. The tests prove even one drop of NNTL significantly reduces the adhesiveness of the nit glue. Some nits actually fell off when the drop was applied without any agitation, pressure, work or time passing!

Focus on Mad River Local
Schools newsletter: "Worker Didn’t ‘Bumble’ Opportunity to ‘Bee’ a True Friend."

Doug Buschur had no idea that a beautiful September morning mowing grass at Brantwood Elementary would turn into a day he would never forget. Suddenly he found himself the target of an attack by angry yellow jackets, whose nest he had disturbed. By the time fellow maintenance worker, Harold Bailey, discovered what was happening, Doug was having an adverse reaction to the stings. Typical of Harold’s easygoing manner, he calmly led Doug to his truck and drove him to the fire station for immediate medical attention. Later, at the hospital, doctors determined Doug had been minutes away from a fatal outcome - minutes Harold saved with his quick thinking and level-headed action.

The site of the attack was not threatening to Brantwood students, but Maintenance Supervisor Ron Atkins and his men saw to it that the nest was cemented and the area was treated with nontoxic repellent. Now, Doug and Harold know everything is going to bee just fine. (If only the ribbing ever stops!)

Stephen will be speaking
at the Ohio Public Facilities Maintenance Association on "How to Kill Pests without Killing Yourself" in Columbus, Ohio November 14-16, 2000.

The importance of time. Imagine there is a bank that credits your personal account each morning with a $86,400 . It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course!!!!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME. Every morning, it credits you with a full 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this time you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours. There is no going back or saving!

There is no drawing against the "tomorrow." You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the maximum potential for the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running.

Make the most of today.

To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a single grade.

To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.

To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are anxiously waiting to meet.

To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who just missed the train.

To realize the value of ONE-SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.

To realize the value of ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Treasure every moment that you have been given! And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time.

And remember that time waits for no one!

G-d, grant me the senility to
forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

The Mysteries of the English Language:

• There’s no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither applie nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fires in France.

• Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

• And why is is that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So why is the plural of mouse not two meese?

• If teachers taught, why don’t preachers praught?

• If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

• If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

• Sometimes I think all of the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language to people recite at a play and play at a recital?

• The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.

• Measure wealth not by the things you have, but by the things you have for which you would not take money.

• A housewife called up a pet store and said, "Send me a thousand cockroaches at once!" "What in the world do you want with a thousand cockroaches," asked the clerk. "Well," replied the woman, "I am moving today and my lease says that I must leave the premises in exactly the same condition I found it."

Rosalind and I will be vacationing from November 23 (Thanksgiving Day) through December 8. Victor will be answering the phone and will be able to answer any questions and/or send you product. If you have any remaining pest problems, please schedule them for Winter Break. Baklava will be delivered (G-d willing) after our return.

Thank you for your help in proving safe alternatives are more effective than "registered" poisons in controlling pest problems. Let us know if you discover any unusual alternatives.

Have you visted our web
site at http://www,getipm.com recently? Hundreds of thousands of people have. G-d bless!

Get Set, Inc.
2530 Hayes Street
Marne, MI 49435-975102
 1-616-677-2850

Current Issue | Archives