The smell of a decomposing mouse somewhere forward of the firewall

In article ,
"Montblack" wrote:

("Jonathan Goodish" wrote)
I would be interested in any creative practical solutions, but I suspect
that there are no easy answers. The bottom line is that mice are a huge
pain, and are almost impossible to eliminate, especially in a T-hangar.


I've heard dryer sheets of Bounce work. Mice don't like the smell.


Montblack

Moth balls are also an excellent mouse/rat repellant. Put a few inside
the wheelwells and cowling -- they won't want to come in.

I have had a few mouse problems in the past, but not recently. I did,
however have a roof rat try to take up residence in my Shop Vac one
time. It chewed its way past the exit grid and made a nest inside the
rotor. When I turned it on, all kinds of shop towel stuff blew out. I
found the newly-dead rat pushed against the remains of the exit grid and
had to extricate it with a pair of needle-nosed pliers.

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

"Orval Fairbairn" wrote in message
news Montblack

Moth balls are also an excellent mouse/rat repellant. Put a few inside
the wheelwells and cowling -- they won't want to come in.

But how do you get them from out between their little moth legs.

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