I just found this abomination
[www.rentokil.co.uk]

They must be expecting some tough new mice from mother nature, if they are sending out 'operatives' to deal with the mouse that get stuck in this Bond-villain device.

They should design a detector for lecherous old men.

I could have used the radar device last night. A very drunk old man in his seventies tried to pick me up at a gig I was at last night (I was only there as a driver for a band member and to listen). Thankfully the barman whisked the sod away immediately. Normally my bf is with me and I don't get bothered by anyone.
I should have paid attention to my martial arts instructions......

<Ponders the potential of turning punk>

Read the article and think suffocation is not a nice way to go.

Do they have a larger one for Rentokil executives. Perhaps a squad from MOUSES'R'US can boobytrap a lift in the Rentokil building with a similar device and save the world much suffering.

How much research was done under what conditions to determine how much CO2 and how long it takes to kill a mouse? What if the mouse holds its breath? Or is a mouse of exceptional lung capacity? Or is on Warfarin?

It is better than breaking its back with a sprung steel bar, surely?

I can imagine the researchers, cackling manically as they tested how much co2 to use.
I can also imagine that they experimented with lasers, circular saws and giant shark tanks, while stroking their white persian cat and demanding ransoms by holding the world hostage.

There is some discussion around the web about CO2 inducing panic attacks - far from humane. Rentokil claim that it takes 20-40 seconds for the mouse to die, bit at least no-one has to look at splattered mouse. and anyway ho long is 30 seconds in "mouse time" - even a long-lived active mouse should see it's life flash before it's eyes a few times. I would say the steel bar is looking pretty good.

As they have got a pressure sensor in there, what about an iron maiden, either the band piped in (hardly humane), or a compactor (a la Star Wars) with spikes.

What about the feline alterative to all this? A trained mouse-catching jaguar?

Possibly a canine alternative? Yorkshire Terrier perhaps?

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Or just not leaving food out so they go elsewhere...

Now hang on, if we wanted sense we'd be off reading something else!

Maybe SAS-trained 'friendly' mice who would do our bidding instead of our own and dispose of the hostiles?

Go you really think it would be alright?

I can see the scenario of the SAS beserker mice cleaning out the riff raff mice and then setting their sight higher and before you know what's happened the human race will be fighting a gorilla (sic) war against the dominant rodent population in a world wide Disneyland environment.

Everywhere there will be enormouse pictures of Mickey and Minnie with the occasional Mighty Mouse poster to keep the subjugated races under control.

The mewing of enslaved felines will be horrendouse to hear, and the trafficking* of unlicenced cheese will be et with the most draconian measures.

I suppose that an underground movement of non rodent species would eventually wreak havoc on the dominant mice population and suicide teams of cats and humans would attempt to destroy mice strongholds until some sort of status quo was reached.

Anyone got anything to add to this in case I have over-reacted?



*interesting word: 'traffic' has no 'k' so why does 'trafficking' have one?

And the plural of tailback is tailsback. It seemed appropriate with all the mice talk.

Speaking of mice, while I am not a mouse fancier, I do like native Aussie mice. We have a small family of these living in one of our compost bins. They don't even notice us looking at them as they are out of their skulls on fermented and decomposing vegetable scraps. They are the hopping kind, like mini versions of wallabies and kangaroos.

Whenever I got out of my mind due to the consumption of fermented products i guess i was kind of hopping as well.

Do you have a control population by which you can gauge the extent of 'out of skullness'?

Reminds me of when we went to a farm and a cow had got at some fermented barley. It ate enough to overflow the first two parts of the gut and got sozzled. Dad said the milk was analysed with interest by the Qld vet school but nothing special was found. To get the same effect a litre of milk and half a bottle of cherry brandy.

Not really I am afraid they don't make mouse sized breath-testers in Australia!

My mother remembers drunk parrots falling out of trees, having been feeding on fermented nectar and on another occasion drunk chooks, as her Grandma had tossed out some off preserves.

A drunk cow would be quite entertaining!

I have, er, friends, who burned some cookies once, and chucked them in the compost heap... The dog got into them, and was acting very strangely.

Sounds like they baked some interesting cookies. ;)

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Were those Magic Cookies?
I think I have the recipe around here, somewhere...

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Space cookies maybe?

Er, we call them Mormon cookies.
Um, I hear.