Rodents, pesty insects, etc.

[Troy]

I'm sure this question has been asked before but I couldn't find it in a search... so whats peoples opinion on rodents and "pesty" insects? just wondering what your opinions are on a few of the following example questions...

 

1) A mosquito is sucking your blood, or a fly or other insect is biting or stinging you... do you instinctively slap at it because it is causing you pain or do you gently brush it off and let it live?

 

2) Your house becomes overrun with termites or mice or rats or ants, and the things in your house are either falling apart or being chewed to threads... How do you handle the situation?

[xveganjoshx]

1) If something hurts me I hurt it back. No exceptions. If it's not hurting me, I leave it alone. I have been known to bend this rule when I think something has a reasonable capacity to hurt me or my loved ones. For instance there are poisonous insects around my parents house (scorpions, millipedes) and we have small children and small animals. When these find their way into my house they're pretty much out of luck. Sorry but I'm not going to let them hurt my chihuahua or my siblings.

 

2) There are humane traps for rats and mice. I don't know what I'd do about ants, termites, or roaches though.

 

Are you having any of these problems or are you just curious?

[Troy]

Are you having any of these problems or are you just curious?

 

Thanks for your insight josh... no, I'm not... it was a random vegan question that popped in my head while driving today.

[kjs]

Good question. I've been a little perplexed about this as well.

 

If I see ants / spiders in my house, first attempt, I'll try to sweep them onto a dustpan and take them outside.

 

Hopefully more don't come back, but then I do spray so it doesn't become a bigger problem and more have to get killed later.

 

If there's a better solution, I'm open to it.

[Zack]

Pretty much with josh on this one...I would avoid killing a mouse/rat if possible.

[hsorlando]

I live in Florida so I do have this problem with bugs. You can have the cleanest house in the area, but when it gets hot, you start seeing roaches. I can't kill them,so I capture them in a big plastic cup, cover it,and take it outside. Then these darn things turn around and head for the door again lol. I can't kill anything, I don't squish flies, or bees, spiders, or any other bug.I just do my best to not have contact with them.

[Troy]

But what if your problem was like this? Mouse Plague of 1993

Edited February 20, 2008 by Troy

[Guest]

With bugs I just brush them off. Not because I'm vegan but because I don't care to kill them...I didn't do that before I went vegan. I have no problem with people killing bugs on that small scale because naturally I think we should be eating them...I just wouldn't.

As for the rodents thing...you can always catch them.

[pelicanAndrew]

I find swatting a mosquito to be a knee jerk reaction. Thankfully where I live we don't get that many insects inside so I don't have to deal with infestations of termites or roaches. Mice can always be caught as has been said a bunch of times already.

[DV]

I'm with Josh on this one as well.

 

I will kill any animal or insect that has a strong potential of doing me (or mine) harm in my home. Insects and animals (especially mosquitos and rodents) have been the vectors of organisms harmful to humans for years.

 

Unfortunately, this reality is what leads to the mass killing (or culling?) of domesticated animals when there is an outbreak of bird flu or mad cow disease.

[beforewisdom]

I Insects and animals (especially mosquitos and rodents) have been the vectors of organisms harmful to humans for years.

 

That is the bottom line.

 

If you read the health section of the news regularly you will read that a lot of diseases are spread by mosquitoes, mice, and rats in particular.

 

I don't think there are any humane solutions.

 

If you live in a suburban or urban area relocating rodents can only amount to them going into someone else's home where they will end up being killed in a nasty trap anyway. Perhaps nastier than the trap you had. They can die a slow death from poisoning or they can die slowly from dehydration in a glue trap.

 

In less densely populated areas you have to take them far enough away so they get lost. That means they either have trouble finding food or they get ripped apart by a predator. Insert your favorite debate whether it is preferential to die by starvation, die by being ripped apart by an animal, or die instantly by having your neck snapped in a trap.

 

 

There are a LOT of things you can do to keep rodents out of your house. If you google for about 15 min you can find a lot of tips.

 

Mice can enter through any opening as small as a dime. Most of the time mice get in by crawling up on the outside of a water pipe for your kitchen or bathroom sink. You can buy a foam from most hardware stores that you can use to fill in the gap between the pipe and the sides of the hole in the bottom of your kitchen/bathroom cabinets from which your pipe comes up into your house/apartment.

 

Make sure there is a metal plate on the bottom of all your doors. Rodents will chew holes in wood you think are too tiny to get through and they will get through them.

 

Use metal garbage cans if you have them. Rodents will chew through other materials. Make sure you garbage is completely sealed in the cans.

 

If you recycle in those horrid little open bins municipalities seem to love, rinse out your containers before you put them outside for recycling. It doesn't take much to sustain a rat and even less to sustain a mouse. Even trace amounts of sauce or other food can make it worth a rodent's while to consider your area a food source. If they do that, when it gets cold, they will risk trying to enter your home to stay warm.

 

Mice HATE mint. If you own your home planting mint in a perimeter around your home can help deter them.

Don't waste your money on sonic rodent repellents.

I've seen several articles stating there is no proof they work and I've seen a lot of anecdotal accounts in product reviews on amazon that they are ineffective. Reviews stating things like mice and rats standing calmly r under them looking at the person who bought the alarm.

[Guest]

I figure swatting one fly away won't protect me from the next one so I just ooch them off until they leave me alone. I spend about 20-25hour a week outside on my bike and maybe another 10hours a week doing various activities outside. Obviously I get lots of exposure to insects...I also don't wear long clothes or repellents. All last summer I doubt I got more than 10 bug bites...maybe only 5. It can be a hassle and I understand why others don't do it...but for me its worth it...after all...flies need food too.

[CollegeB]

check out dirtdoctor.com he's all about organic gardening and pest control.

[beforewisdom]

But what if your problem was like this? Mouse Plague of 1993

 

I've heard Austraila has had plauges of jack rabbits and cane toads because they wiped out their predators and the natural ecosystem. I wonder if it is the same deal with the mice.

[phillipeb]

Im glad troy made this thread. I cannot bring myself to kill things, on occasion i have a kneejerk reaction to insects that results in death but for the most part i have trained myself to no react to outside stimulus. I moved into a place and found out too late that it has a thriving ant population in the vents, i just sweep them up gently and place them in the trash but its getting ridiculous so i am seeking a way as to block them from coming through the vents. I was thinking about picking up neem oil and coating the outside of the vents for a few weeks because its a non toxic barrier the ants would not cross, hopefully, but the bastards seem rather persistent. I have taken to leaving corn chips on my floor in various areas so the ants in the carpet will swarm there so that i can vacuum once in a while. I have yet to vacuum in 3 months of moving in for fear of this.

[Dr. Pink]

My personal views on this are:

 

Don't mess with me and I won't mess with you.

 

I can't tell you how many times I've seen a spider on the ceiling in my bathroom and did nothing. After all they eat pesky flies naturally. Which is why I barely see flies in my house.

 

but when I see a spider chillin in my bathtub when I am about to take a shower I just simply apply water and flush him down the drain. I don't think that it kills them( But as a kid I always thought that once a spider is exposed to water it just dies instantly ) but that's what I do to them.

 

When I got ants on me the knee jerk reatcion I get is to brush it off. I don't like squishing things with my bare hands. Too dirty. So I just brush them off.

 

I've never been in the situation where I would have to perform genocide on a hornets nest or a beehive with poisonous gases to protect my family. But of course I value my family over insects. And if they endanger them it no longer is about them. But about family. Sure I do care for all living things. But I'd hate to think of how I'd feel if anyone died in my family due to my morals. It's nature at work. You fight to survive and to remain living.

 

Not to say that I was always like this. When I was a child( Like 7 or 8 ) I used to squish ants with my fingers. And In remember one time when I was around 7-8( Same age ) I was on vacation in Mexico. I was at a ranch and I saw a red ant hill. So I sat next to it and performed genocide on them with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Dismembered toy arm( I think it was either bebop or roxsteady) and I just started squishing them.

 

I'm lucky they didn't kill me.

[fr33d0santana]

Hi all, I've lived in Dallas, Texas for over 20 years and I'm sure many of you have heard that Texas is a little piece of Australia in the US in terms of the variety of fauna, namely insects, rodents and the like. Personally, I hate ants the most. I find them incredibly disgusting, and as soon as I imagine them crawling on my skin, I get goosebumps. But recently I was lucky enough to find a great article in which I was able to learn a wealth of information about the different types of ants in Dallas and what to do if they have gotten into your home.