[VAC] Re: Mice - give it to me straight.

[Sarah Calhoun <scalhoun@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Toby:  don't know what they do to the various components, but if they stay in
there all winter, they'll build up a considerable amount of, er, droppings.
Hantavirus from rodent droppings has been confirmed mainly in the southwest but
it has been found in rare instances in other places.  When you get around to
cleaning it up, you'd want to wet it down, wear breathing protection and don't
sweep it.  Probably only a minor possibility, but it's a pretty nasty disease, I
believe up to a 50% mortality rate.  Also once they start nesting in the
insulation etc. I would think it would be hard to dislodge them.  They multiply
at a pretty fierce rate.  In a former apartment, I was initially tolerant but
then got tired of the mouse s--- in my tea towel drawer.  They really don't have
any sense about where they "go" and where they don't.  Finally, if you miss one
and seal the walls back up and somebody is trapped in there, you're in for
several months of mouse-corpse odor.  In the aforementioned apartment, one mouse
died inside the wall cavity and we had to leave windows & doors open most of the
winter.  Not much fun in San Francisco, probably even less fun in Minnesota.  Do
you know anyone who has a good mouser who could spend some time in your
mouse-hotel?

--Sarah Calhoun