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The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

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61–70 of 218 posts

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#61
post #53

Brodifacoum? I don’t buy that on Amazon, I buy it at my local supermarket. Not the US, Australia. I’ve never heard any controversy about availability of brodifacoum in Australia (maybe some environmental or animal welfare group has complained, but if so I haven’t heard about it) Glue traps, now that’s controversial. In the state of Victoria, illegal to use in residential settings (on animal welfare grounds), but stil…

What’s so bad about a glue trap that it weighs up against massive internal hemorrhaging over the course of 5 days?

Because most people think poison is like in the movies/tv where the victim chokes for 30 seconds, and drops dead immediately with a little bit of white foam dribbling out of their mouth.

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#63

I use the old-fashioned snap traps. They work fine. Sometimes it's necessary to tweak the catch to make it more sensitive. They're made of wood and wire, and aren't an environmental problem. I live near a greenbelt and there's a never-ending invasion of mice. If I leave the garage door open and unattended, they're in in a flash and setting up shop. The only way to get rid of them is the traps, and you have to get rid…

I sometimes get mice in the house, and found snap traps to be totally ineffective. They worked at first, but when I had more than one mouse in the house, they seemed to learn to avoid them and even how to eat the bait without setting off the mechanism. The most generally effective trap I have found is glue traps. They are an awful device but very effective. Unfortunately, you have to kill the trapped mice yourself. T…

There are better mouse traps than those sold at grocery stores.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082LP4VS1 - snap traps of this type are easier to set, and were more reliable at killing mice for me.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Authenzo-Humane-Mouse-Trap-Smart-... - live traps were also effective for me. You have to be strategic about where you put them. I kept a bucket of water on the porch and would dunk the whole trap with mouse inside to drown it. Less humane perhaps than snap traps, but better than glue or poison. If you rotate between kinds of trap week over week you can get pretty reliable results.

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#64
post #49

I use the old-fashioned snap traps. They work fine. Sometimes it's necessary to tweak the catch to make it more sensitive. They're made of wood and wire, and aren't an environmental problem. I live near a greenbelt and there's a never-ending invasion of mice. If I leave the garage door open and unattended, they're in in a flash and setting up shop. The only way to get rid of them is the traps, and you have to get rid…

If you have a big enough garden, you could put an owl nest box in a calm place when the owlets constant screeching noise will not suppose a problem. Owls can be territorial and attack to protect the nest also, so leave them far from the house and alone. Unlike traps, they will catch ten mice by night each night and will dispose of the corpses so you don't need to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P-KWBSbis4

If you're lucky enough to have one move in. I have a bat house in hopes of natural mosquito control. It's been a few years and there's no sign of use.

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#65
post #37

I use the old-fashioned snap traps. They work fine. Sometimes it's necessary to tweak the catch to make it more sensitive. They're made of wood and wire, and aren't an environmental problem. I live near a greenbelt and there's a never-ending invasion of mice. If I leave the garage door open and unattended, they're in in a flash and setting up shop. The only way to get rid of them is the traps, and you have to get rid…

For a Cat to work on mice it has to be a Mouser. I can't pretend I know the full theory of Mousers but it seems that females brought up by Mouser mothers in a mouse-rich environment are the best Mousers, since they are taught to kill from their earliest years.

Then all you have to be concerned with is avoiding toxoplasmosis exposure.

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#66

It also has a gray market problem. I ordered a webcam on Amazon, some time ago. Amazon had it listed as “official,” and had a link to the manufacturer’s store page at the top. It was a “Fulfilled by Amazon” product, which should have told me that it wasn’t actually coming from the manufacturer, as the listing led me to believe. However, when I received the device, it was the Chinese version (gray market), with a fair…

Amazon's inventory commingling means that if a product has both a legitimate and illegitimate seller, you can order “from” the former and get the latter's product.

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#67
post #49

I use the old-fashioned snap traps. They work fine. Sometimes it's necessary to tweak the catch to make it more sensitive. They're made of wood and wire, and aren't an environmental problem. I live near a greenbelt and there's a never-ending invasion of mice. If I leave the garage door open and unattended, they're in in a flash and setting up shop. The only way to get rid of them is the traps, and you have to get rid…

If you have a big enough garden, you could put an owl nest box in a calm place when the owlets constant screeching noise will not suppose a problem. Owls can be territorial and attack to protect the nest also, so leave them far from the house and alone. Unlike traps, they will catch ten mice by night each night and will dispose of the corpses so you don't need to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P-KWBSbis4

We're fortunate enough to have an owl (I assume a pair) and a couple of hawk pairs in my neighborhood (I can see them in the nest). There are also snakes (I've had to coerce a 3' black racer off my porch). Rodents have never been an issue.

The problem with denser city living is there isn't a lot of habitat for natural predators.

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#68
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to eBay seller ratings where 99.9% positive feedback means you might get your item, whereas 95% positive feedback implies the seller is stealing the goods from the factory that counterfeits them and whether you receive anything depends mainly on how the shipping carrier handles a package that catches fire in transit. Less than 80% positive feedback has never been observed but would presumably involve the sell…

This has the same energy as that "you wouldn't steal a car" ad in IT Crowd. But it's not far from the truth, and unless 10 news websites report on it online platforms won't even bother with an empty statement. Amazon for example lets vendors transfer good reviews to any other product by just replacing the product entry (name, description, price). Sure you then have reviews for coffee cups under some solder wire, but…

I think it's also review shyness. My wife yelled at me once (like real, oh shit I'm in trouble, yell) for leaving a 1 star review for an Uber driver who sped the whole way and ran a red light.

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#69
post #28

Anyone surprised that the title is not a metaphor? The article is about the literal sale of substances which are harmful when ingested by rodents.

Yes! I thought it was going to compare the fight against with the Hanoi rat problem of 1902, where giving people the wrong incentive exacerbated the problem.

That raises an interesting question. What ARE the Hanoi Rat problems of the internet?

Re: The Internet Has a Rat Poison Problem

#70

It also has a gray market problem. I ordered a webcam on Amazon, some time ago. Amazon had it listed as “official,” and had a link to the manufacturer’s store page at the top. It was a “Fulfilled by Amazon” product, which should have told me that it wasn’t actually coming from the manufacturer, as the listing led me to believe. However, when I received the device, it was the Chinese version (gray market), with a fair…

Amazon used to have a webpage that clearly stated they commingle inventory from all sellers, so it has long been public information that when you buy something on Amazon.com, the seller you buy from does not matter.
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