Of Mice and Men

Never, ever purchase male mice. Don't even think about it. Yes, they will look so cute running around together in the pet store, but resist; they smell like mortal sin. They weren't bad when they were young, but they are now adult male mice and they are oh so potent.

We still love our mice, Willis, Jack, and Max, but sadly they have been exiled from the boy's room. Their deadly aroma became too much, especially for me. If you ask Melinda, she'll say I was dead-set on exterminating them. Alas, that wasn't ever actually an option, so plan B was to give them to a good home. That plan failed too. We believe in truth in advertising, so needless to say there were no takers. Let's face it, "would you like a stinky mouse?" isn't a very good sales tactic.

So I resorted to plan C - Operation Rodent Ventilation. So far it has worked out great! No more stink from the boys room! I had been hatching this plan for a while and 2 weeks a go I decided to go for it.

Materials:
1. Flexible dryer vent (we had this already)
2. Small box fan (we had this too!)
3. Duct tape (this I had to buy; the boys go through this faster than toilet paper)
4. Plastic sheeting (from the garage)
5. Rigid styrofoam insulation (this I had to buy, too)
6. Small amount of screen (found it in the garage from an old windows screen)

I moved the mice habitats downstairs to the sprout room (the spare room I use for starting seedlings). Then I ducted tape plastic on both sides of the fan - one to cover their tanks, and the other to attach to the dryer vent.


Then I ran the dryer vent to the windows (one of the old panes was cracked, so I broke it all the way out and placed the styrofoam sheet to the windows, cut a hole in it, attached a screen, then attached the hose. Then I put plastic on the windows, and ducked taped the rest of the vent to keep out leaks.


Below is the vent from the outside. Warning: stay way unless you want your nose hair burnt!


Anyway, life is much better now that the boy's room doesn't smell like the zoo. The sprout room only has the very faintest hint of rodent smell, and even though we still have to clean out their cages every week, I can live with that.