Of mice and men

[Ron Who]

This morning I spotted a mouse basking in the heat generated by my laptop computer. I was just about to leave and visit my parents, so I let it be and thought I would trap it later, and release it in the garden. I had no plans of killing it, but I don´t want mice in my house. However, when I got back I found it laying dead on the floor, cause of death unknown. I threw it into the garden anyway, to serve as fertilizer or bird food or whatever and now I´m feeling bad, as if its death was my fault. Of course the death of a mouse is not the end of the world and I´m no sissy, just wanted to tell someone.

[ironraven]

This morning I spotted a mouse basking in the heat generated by my laptop computer. I was just about to leave and visit my parents, so I let it be and thought I would trap it later, and release it in the garden. I had no plans of killing it, but I don´t want mice in my house. However, when I got back I found it laying dead on the floor, cause of death unknown. I threw it into the garden anyway, to serve as fertilizer or bird food or whatever and now I´m feeling bad, as if its death was my fault. Of course the death of a mouse is not the end of the world and I´m no sissy, just wanted to tell someone.

Your computer identified a unknown and thus dangerous biological. It waited until you were gone to service it- no point in panicking the humans. Yet.

Not yet.

All hail Skynet!

[styx]

maybe it was old age. or a heart attack that you didn't pull a shotgun

[Ron Who]

Or maybe it was starvation, or the cold after I turned off the computer, or maybe it was Skynet after all. In which case I´d better not get a cat.

[ThundahBeagle]

Resistance is futile

[ThundahBeagle]

ZAP!

[ThundahBeagle]

But seriously, is there some form of rat poison in the basement or around the outside foundation? Maybe he got a hold of something just before stopping by for this morning's visit, and was really just what EMT' s call the walking dead. Not the TV kind.

[Mechanickal]

[El Corkscrew]

.

[styx]

(Image removed from quote.)

that's the time you pull out the shotgun

[Etherealicer]

Or maybe it was starvation, or the cold after I turned off the computer, or maybe it was Skynet after all. In which case I´d better not get a cat.

If I were you, I would check for Gas leak (if you have gas in the house). Another potential danger is Radon, although I seriously doubt it kills that fast (and it commonly is only a danger in cellars).

Other than that, make sure you have tape over the camera of your Laptop

[Blackbeard]

natural gas has an additive that makes it smell like rotting eggs, if you smell this open doors and windows and call gas company as this can cause an explosion...its often confused with carbon monoxide gas which is the by-product of burning gas/fossil fuels, has no odor but can asphyxiate you and make your brain whonky and kill you...get a CO detector and have your heating system checked if the alarm goes off.

[Don Pablo]

natural gas has an additive that makes it smell like rotting eggs, if you smell this open doors and windows and call gas company as this can cause an explosion...its often confused with carbon monoxide gas which is the by-product of burning gas/fossil fuels, has no odor but can asphyxiate you and make your brain whonky and kill you...get a CO detector and have your heating system checked if the alarm goes off.

I wonder... Does natural gas have that stinky additive in every country? 

[Etherealicer]

natural gas has an additive that makes it smell like rotting eggs, if you smell this open doors and windows and call gas company as this can cause an explosion...its often confused with carbon monoxide gas which is the by-product of burning gas/fossil fuels, has no odor but can asphyxiate you and make your brain whonky and kill you...get a CO detector and have your heating system checked if the alarm goes off.

I wonder... Does natural gas have that stinky additive in every country? 

I would presume that it is so, for gas lines everywhere.

However, there are other gas-sources.
In rural region of the US, they often have a Butane tank outside the house, I don't know about these but I would presume they are like the camping gas and don't have the smelly additive. I have seen houses that use the bottles you would use for a BBQ stove, never seen (smelled) one that had an additive with those (or whatever they use is less intense).

[Ron Who]

.

Yes, that´s him.

[styx]

natural gas has an additive that makes it smell like rotting eggs, if you smell this open doors and windows and call gas company as this can cause an explosion...its often confused with carbon monoxide gas which is the by-product of burning gas/fossil fuels, has no odor but can asphyxiate you and make your brain whonky and kill you...get a CO detector and have your heating system checked if the alarm goes off.

I wonder... Does natural gas have that stinky additive in every country? 

I would presume that it is so, for gas lines everywhere.

However, there are other gas-sources.
In rural region of the US, they often have a Butane tank outside the house, I don't know about these but I would presume they are like the camping gas and don't have the smelly additive. I have seen houses that use the bottles you would use for a BBQ stove, never seen (smelled) one that had an additive with those (or whatever they use is less intense).

Within the EU, I think there is some legislation or directive saying that it should be

[Etherealicer]

natural gas has an additive that makes it smell like rotting eggs, if you smell this open doors and windows and call gas company as this can cause an explosion...its often confused with carbon monoxide gas which is the by-product of burning gas/fossil fuels, has no odor but can asphyxiate you and make your brain whonky and kill you...get a CO detector and have your heating system checked if the alarm goes off.

I wonder... Does natural gas have that stinky additive in every country? 

I would presume that it is so, for gas lines everywhere.

However, there are other gas-sources.
In rural region of the US, they often have a Butane tank outside the house, I don't know about these but I would presume they are like the camping gas and don't have the smelly additive. I have seen houses that use the bottles you would use for a BBQ stove, never seen (smelled) one that had an additive with those (or whatever they use is less intense).

Within the EU, I think there is some legislation or directive saying that it should be

I mean you can smell the butane/propane but I believe that is not a thiol added like they do with natural gas.

Funny story about gas. In the lab, the faucets are color coded. Blue for pressurized air, green for water and yellow for gas. One day we had this hotshot medical doctor in our lab supposedly to teaching us something, but obviously not familiar with the color coding. So, he hooked the Bunsen burner up to the green faucet, then panicking when he was unable to ignite the liquid "gas"

[styx]

natural gas has an additive that makes it smell like rotting eggs, if you smell this open doors and windows and call gas company as this can cause an explosion...its often confused with carbon monoxide gas which is the by-product of burning gas/fossil fuels, has no odor but can asphyxiate you and make your brain whonky and kill you...get a CO detector and have your heating system checked if the alarm goes off.

I wonder... Does natural gas have that stinky additive in every country? 

I would presume that it is so, for gas lines everywhere.

However, there are other gas-sources.
In rural region of the US, they often have a Butane tank outside the house, I don't know about these but I would presume they are like the camping gas and don't have the smelly additive. I have seen houses that use the bottles you would use for a BBQ stove, never seen (smelled) one that had an additive with those (or whatever they use is less intense).

Within the EU, I think there is some legislation or directive saying that it should be

I mean you can smell the butane/propane but I believe that is not a thiol added like they do with natural gas.

Funny story about gas. In the lab, the faucets are color coded. Blue for pressurized air, green for water and yellow for gas. One day we had this hotshot medical doctor in our lab supposedly to teaching us something, but obviously not familiar with the color coding. So, he hooked the Bunsen burner up to the green faucet, then panicking when he was unable to ignite the liquid "gas"

because it is all too difficult to ask

[Etherealicer]

natural gas has an additive that makes it smell like rotting eggs, if you smell this open doors and windows and call gas company as this can cause an explosion...its often confused with carbon monoxide gas which is the by-product of burning gas/fossil fuels, has no odor but can asphyxiate you and make your brain whonky and kill you...get a CO detector and have your heating system checked if the alarm goes off.

I wonder... Does natural gas have that stinky additive in every country? 

I would presume that it is so, for gas lines everywhere.

However, there are other gas-sources.
In rural region of the US, they often have a Butane tank outside the house, I don't know about these but I would presume they are like the camping gas and don't have the smelly additive. I have seen houses that use the bottles you would use for a BBQ stove, never seen (smelled) one that had an additive with those (or whatever they use is less intense).

Within the EU, I think there is some legislation or directive saying that it should be

I mean you can smell the butane/propane but I believe that is not a thiol added like they do with natural gas.

Funny story about gas. In the lab, the faucets are color coded. Blue for pressurized air, green for water and yellow for gas. One day we had this hotshot medical doctor in our lab supposedly to teaching us something, but obviously not familiar with the color coding. So, he hooked the Bunsen burner up to the green faucet, then panicking when he was unable to ignite the liquid "gas"

because it is all too difficult to ask

MDs and PHDs have a special relationship
We helped of course... with comments like "It's going to explode" and such

[Blackbeard]

im pretty sure the stinky additive is universal, or you wouldnt know when there was a natural gas leak and it can explode very easily when vented into an enclosed space like a house, it just takes a small spark to ignite. gas furnaces and boilers use a spark electrode to ignite a pilot which then will ignite the main burner. or they use a hot surface ignitor which heats up and glows when voltage is applied. or a standing pilot which is always lit. If the stink wasnt there you would not know if the gas had leaked and boom

[Blackbeard]

ive had a few units almost blow me to smithereens. the worst was in a warehouse, they have these unit heaters hung from ceiling, the only way to service some of them is via a forklift with a pallette on the forks and some warehouse guy lifts u up to the unit while standing on the pallette. OSHA would have a field day if they saw this, but they make you do this bs when you work for hvac companies. anyway I was maybe 15-20' off the ground working on the unit when I heard a squealing noise and a small fireball almost took my head off, thankfully I didnt fall off but it was scary

I'm kinda thankful that I had shoulder and knee surgeries and cant do this work anymore cause its a crappy thankless career.

[magentus]

ive had a few units almost blow me to smithereens. the worst was in a warehouse, they have these unit heaters hung from ceiling, the only way to service some of them is via a forklift with a pallette on the forks and some warehouse guy lifts u up to the unit while standing on the pallette. OSHA would have a field day if they saw this, but they make you do this bs when you work for hvac companies. anyway I was maybe 15-20' off the ground working on the unit when I heard a squealing noise and a small fireball almost took my head off, thankfully I didnt fall off but it was scary

I'm kinda thankful that I had shoulder and knee surgeries and cant do this work anymore cause its a crappy thankless career.

OMG!
It's infuriating how Health and Safety absolutely has to be adhered to until it doesn't. 

I have regular arguments with our H&S people over asbestos. I'm supposed to do a monthly visual check on an area where there 'may' be asbestos. It's in the gable end of a second storey apartment that I would need to get on a ladder to survey.

Aside from the fact that I am not qualified to assess for asbestos, I am not allowed to climb a ladder as part of my job, so a visual assessment from 15 meters away, conducted by someone unqualified to have an opinion on it, is useless as far as I am concerned.

Every month I state the same thing on my risk assessment form and every month I have the same discussion with H&S.  Why can't you just write down that you've inspected it? They say. Because if anything happens, it's my signature on the form. 

[Etherealicer]

ive had a few units almost blow me to smithereens. the worst was in a warehouse, they have these unit heaters hung from ceiling, the only way to service some of them is via a forklift with a pallette on the forks and some warehouse guy lifts u up to the unit while standing on the pallette. OSHA would have a field day if they saw this, but they make you do this bs when you work for hvac companies. anyway I was maybe 15-20' off the ground working on the unit when I heard a squealing noise and a small fireball almost took my head off, thankfully I didnt fall off but it was scary

I'm kinda thankful that I had shoulder and knee surgeries and cant do this work anymore cause its a crappy thankless career.

OMG!
It's infuriating how Health and Safety absolutely has to be adhered to until it doesn't. 

I have regular arguments with our H&S people over asbestos. I'm supposed to do a monthly visual check on an area where there 'may' be asbestos. It's in the gable end of a second storey apartment that I would need to get on a ladder to survey.

Aside from the fact that I am not qualified to assess for asbestos, I am not allowed to climb a ladder as part of my job, so a visual assessment from 15 meters away, conducted by someone unqualified to have an opinion on it, is useless as far as I am concerned.

Every month I state the same thing on my risk assessment form and every month I have the same discussion with H&S.  Why can't you just write down that you've inspected it? They say. Because if anything happens, it's my signature on the form. 

They try to cover their own ass, plain and simple.

You should advise to get a state inspector, to do a real assessment, might turn out to be glass fibers (the time when it was put there gives a strong indication).
Asbestos can be quite safe if processed correctly, in that case it can also be removed fairly easily (depending on the legislation of course). Worst case are those plastic floors popular in the 60s/70s, they were often put there with asbestos containing concrete... what a mess.

[ironraven]

Why can't you just write down that you've inspected it? They say.

Tell them put it down as a written order, with you recieving a copy.

Then blow the whistle. Blow it now, really.

[Syncop8r]

I'm not a fan of using poison on rats and mice. Some of it can take up to two weeks to kill, which isn't very humane. Also, I used to live somewhere that used rat poison. The rats had a habit of dying in the walls where you couldn't get at them. One must have died in the bathroom wall because every morning for a week I had to wash away the maggots that had fallen from the corpse into the shower.

Now I mostly use an electronic trap called a Rat Zapper. 

[Blackbeard]

I'm not a fan of using poison on rats and mice. Some of it can take up to two weeks to kill, which isn't very humane. Also, I used to live somewhere that used rat poison. The rats had a habit of dying in the walls where you couldn't get at them. One must have died in the bathroom wall because every morning for a week I had to wash away the maggots that had fallen from the corpse into the shower.

Now I mostly use an electronic trap called a Rat Zapper. 

you guys get mouse plagues there like in Australia?

[Syncop8r]

Not as bad as that, but numbers do increase significantly during our native Beech trees' mast seeding years.
Rats, mice, stoats and weasels were introduced to NZ (along with many other pests such as rabbits, deer, possums) and are decimating the native birdlife.

[Etherealicer]

Fun fact of the day:
Did you guys know why poisoning rats works so well? Rats can't vomit (and not burp either), so they cannot purge the stomach...

[Syncop8r]

These are the shizzle:

[Blackbeard]

wow, thats nasty

speaking of squirrels...



thats the upper section of a gas furnace, the silver pipe on top leads to a chimney, once I found a squirrel between the pipe and the motor the flue pipe leads into, its head was smashed into the motor blower wheel, I guess it was trying to get out after falling down the chimney but that is the wrong way to go lol.



another time I took the flue pipe off and a live squirrel jumped out and kind of chased me and the homeowner around for a minute until we were able to get it to run out the door 

found this on google, not my pic, but you get the idea: