Given the amount of cabbage and rock salt I've put in I'm sure that the vinegary water doesn't smell bad. Try a screwdriver sometime.
The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XLI
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bernie14
Filter Manipulator
Can we trust your sense of smell, though?
Samez
Emperor
Citric acid should work fine - you could also use Coca-Cola which contains phosphoric acid. (Can be used for rust removal).RelaxI'm gonna use just the citric acid first to see if it's enough , not gonna go for the heavy artillery until I absolutely have too
It may take up to 24h of exposition to solve lager amounts.
Has anyone ever made a subject access request of credit reference agencies? Any pointers?
The ICO has a useful page, but it seems to be missing some points that I find relevant:
The ICO has a useful page, but it seems to be missing some points that I find relevant:
- It talks a lot about getting the actual data, but I am more interested in data flows, ie. where they got the data from, who they have sold it to and who has taken it without permission. What sort of data should I be requesting / expecting with regards this?
- It gives web site addresses, but it is had to get actual email addresses from them. I have found some online (customerservices@uk.experian.com, TUCTS@transunion.com, clientsvcs@tusales.com, hello@equifax.com) but it is not clear these are the best. Email seems a much better way to do this that a web form or snailmail.
It's mine, so yes.
warpus
In pork I trust
Does anyone know stuff about mice? I think I might have an opening into my house under the sliding door downstairs. I have been dismantling the wooden deck there, and found that mice might live under the deck.. or are using it as a way to get into the house. I haven't found any mouse poop indoors, but I did find curtains that were chewed.. those could have been from a while ago though.. so I'm assuming that I COULD have mice inside, but if not they probably live somewhere under the deck or nearby.
I have a foam spray thing I can use to seal whatever I see that could be a hole.. But I don't want to seal in any mice. So I bought these 2 humane traps and put some salty nuts in them and so far caught 6 mice. I walk 1km+ away and drop them off in nearby non-urban areas. If they return from that distance then according to statistical data I found on the internet they are super mice. So they probably won't. But they could. They also didn't look very alive when I dropped them off, but some of them were definitely breathing. Would it be more humane to kill them? It seems like they get caught overnight and then go crazy trying to get out and basically run out of energy and pass out. So when I drop them off it's very possible they get eaten by predators anyway.. or are already dead.. so.. Is what I'm doing humane? That's my first question I guess.
My plan is to wait until the traps don't catch any mice for a full week. So far I'm on day 3. On saturday I am planning on cleaning out the traps to try to remove any scent, and put in fresh nuts and some peanutbutter. I have no idea if the scent thing matters, but hey, a clean trap consistently caught mice. And now after 6 mice.. no mice for 3 days. Could be because there's no more mice around, or it could be because the traps aren't as attractive to the mice anymore. So I'm going to reset the conditions to what they were before to see if that leads to any changes in the status quo.
After a week of no mice I will foam up all the potential holes I find around that part of the house, and set up the two traps indoors (after probably cleaning them out again and putting in fresh bait)
Is this all a good approach? Or should I be doing something else? I got a giant rat in the wall once that died and took down a whole bunch of insulation with it and caused the pipes to freeze and a completely unsexy water explosion and $15,000 of damage. I have altered the pipework to ensure that this never happens again, while they were rebuilding the walls.. But.. I don't want any critters living in my walls anyway, so I want to do this right. And obviously my traps won't catch any rats, but I am hoping that there aren't rats.. yet.. and that my foam action closes off all entry points into the house from the outside. Then in the spring my plan is to take down the deck completely, and get a better look at that side of the house. Right now it's not easy to get a look.. but it would sort of work to patch up any potential holes.
I have a foam spray thing I can use to seal whatever I see that could be a hole.. But I don't want to seal in any mice. So I bought these 2 humane traps and put some salty nuts in them and so far caught 6 mice. I walk 1km+ away and drop them off in nearby non-urban areas. If they return from that distance then according to statistical data I found on the internet they are super mice. So they probably won't. But they could. They also didn't look very alive when I dropped them off, but some of them were definitely breathing. Would it be more humane to kill them? It seems like they get caught overnight and then go crazy trying to get out and basically run out of energy and pass out. So when I drop them off it's very possible they get eaten by predators anyway.. or are already dead.. so.. Is what I'm doing humane? That's my first question I guess.
My plan is to wait until the traps don't catch any mice for a full week. So far I'm on day 3. On saturday I am planning on cleaning out the traps to try to remove any scent, and put in fresh nuts and some peanutbutter. I have no idea if the scent thing matters, but hey, a clean trap consistently caught mice. And now after 6 mice.. no mice for 3 days. Could be because there's no more mice around, or it could be because the traps aren't as attractive to the mice anymore. So I'm going to reset the conditions to what they were before to see if that leads to any changes in the status quo.
After a week of no mice I will foam up all the potential holes I find around that part of the house, and set up the two traps indoors (after probably cleaning them out again and putting in fresh bait)
Is this all a good approach? Or should I be doing something else? I got a giant rat in the wall once that died and took down a whole bunch of insulation with it and caused the pipes to freeze and a completely unsexy water explosion and $15,000 of damage. I have altered the pipework to ensure that this never happens again, while they were rebuilding the walls.. But.. I don't want any critters living in my walls anyway, so I want to do this right. And obviously my traps won't catch any rats, but I am hoping that there aren't rats.. yet.. and that my foam action closes off all entry points into the house from the outside. Then in the spring my plan is to take down the deck completely, and get a better look at that side of the house. Right now it's not easy to get a look.. but it would sort of work to patch up any potential holes.
wtf how when where
@warpus That is a good plan. You can also move some of the traps around too. If you have mice in your house almost always you will find their poop somewhere. Putting traps where you find poop is smart. We always use PB as our bait. After catching that many, if you go a week without getting any more, you probably got them all. Just keep your eye out for poop when you sweep, wipe down counters or look inside your lower cabinets.
I would think predators would have taken care of the ones you dropped off that were dead or nearly dead. That said... since mice aren't in any danger of extinction any millennium soon, killing is the best thing. It's what I did when we had a mouse infestation. I either let the cats take care of them or if they left them alive (as one did), I killed the mouse before putting it in the garbage. Even I am not heartless enough to put a still-living mouse (caught in a jam jar) into the garbage still alive; I put it out of its misery first.
Seems sensible so far. My advice includes inspecting your cupboards and pantries - everywhere that you store food and checking for droppings and if any holes have been chewed in bags or boxes. We had to throw out a lot of food, completely sanitize the cupboards, and switch to hard plastic and glass containers. Don't forget that they can move vertically, so check all your cupboards from basement on up, floor to ceiling. They can get through very tiny openings.
And if you do find droppings, wear a mask and gloves when dealing with them. Anything you use to clean them up will either need to be sanitized or thrown away (don't use the vacuum cleaner). Some mice carry hantavirus, which can kill (it's a respiratory disease).
Another possible solution (not viable for you, I know, but still useful for other folks) is to get a cat. Or allow someone else's cat 'mousing privileges.' Not kidding - when we had that infestation back in 1993, it was a neighborhood-wide situation (the City decided to save $$$$ by not keeping the grass cut on the roadside boulevards and ditches, the mouse population exploded, and they moved into our neighborhood, it being the closest). I had three adult cats, one of which was a good mouser, another one learned that summer, and the third, while finding mice icky things she didn't want to kill, she still caught one, let it go, and daintily watched from a safe perch while her son and I caught and killed it. So Maggie took care of the mice outside, Tomtat took care of the mice inside, and my grandmother's friend across the street literally begged me to rent her my cats to take care of the mice in her own house (I said no because this woman had an aggressive German Shepherd who would have killed my cats).
Years later, my dad's cat, Sammy, was a wonderful mouser (though he scared my dad's girlfriend one night by scratching at the door to get in, she opened it, and found him sitting there with his mouth stuffed full of mouse with the tail hanging out the side). Sammy had a bit of a creepy aspect to his enjoyment of mice; he would take the corpses down to the cellar and leave them there (the parts he hadn't eaten). My dad found it funny when he discovered the "mouse mausoleum" - multiple bits of mouse remains, all lined up in a row behind the furnace.
It's good that you're not using one of those glue traps. Those are absolutely inhumane - not that I care about the mice, but they have caught cats, kittens, and other animals that have died of dehydration, starvation, stress, and predators because they couldn't escape.
There are ultrasound devices which supposedly scare away also mice. They're not expensive. Maybe not a bad idea to use it as additional safety measure for a while.
I did that in my last apartment after I had mice, and I didn't see any around afterwards anymore (and that in a ground floor apartment in an old house, in the middle of a city; we did have some in the walls though).
I did that in my last apartment after I had mice, and I didn't see any around afterwards anymore (and that in a ground floor apartment in an old house, in the middle of a city; we did have some in the walls though).
hobbsyoyo
Deity
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Anyone have experience growing tulips from bulbs? I want to grow some on my porch.
Online it says they need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight and I think one side of my porch gets that, though its hard to tell right now with the short winter days. How sensitive to light are they? will they die if they only get 5 hours of light?
Online says they need to be planted at least 8 inches deep. How deep does the container need to be then? 12 inches?
Online says it needs to be well-drained soil. Can you buy a well-drained soil mix?
Do they design hanging planters just for tulips? I want to hang them from my porch rail.
Online it says they need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight and I think one side of my porch gets that, though its hard to tell right now with the short winter days. How sensitive to light are they? will they die if they only get 5 hours of light?
Online says they need to be planted at least 8 inches deep. How deep does the container need to be then? 12 inches?
Online says it needs to be well-drained soil. Can you buy a well-drained soil mix?
Do they design hanging planters just for tulips? I want to hang them from my porch rail.
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I do not know much but:
- Tulips grow in the shade here in the UK (under trees and the like), and we are much further north than you. I would be surprised if you had any problems on that front.
- If you are putting them in hanging baskets, you will not have a problem with it being not well drained enough, but more likely the opposite problem in that you will have to water them multiple times a day to stop them drying out.
warpus
In pork I trust
Thanks for the comments everyone. I was in part just not wanting to cause the mice unnecessary pain. So. It seems that these "humane" traps might not actually be good for that. But I have no idea. They are pests, but maybe it's just better to kill them.
Also wanted to see if anyone knows something about mice behaviour to comment on my strategy.
So.. That's pretty much the story. It went down below -25C one winter, which occasionally happens.. and the water pipes froze, then later exploded and flooded a bunch of the basement, even though I shut off the water as soon as I could. When the fixup crew tore the walls open to begin restoration work they found the corpse of a rather large rat in the wall close to where the pipe burst. They said that the insulation had been displaced in that part of the wall and that's one of the reasons why the pipe burst. When the walls were open I had a shutoff valve installed so that water would not be anywhere in that wall the whole winter. Also of course a lot of new insulation.
Also wanted to see if anyone knows something about mice behaviour to comment on my strategy.
So.. That's pretty much the story. It went down below -25C one winter, which occasionally happens.. and the water pipes froze, then later exploded and flooded a bunch of the basement, even though I shut off the water as soon as I could. When the fixup crew tore the walls open to begin restoration work they found the corpse of a rather large rat in the wall close to where the pipe burst. They said that the insulation had been displaced in that part of the wall and that's one of the reasons why the pipe burst. When the walls were open I had a shutoff valve installed so that water would not be anywhere in that wall the whole winter. Also of course a lot of new insulation.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Sure that shouldn't be 8 centimeters? Eight inches seems an awful long way down for a bulb-grown flower. It's not as though you need to protect them from frost over the winter -- or from being dug up by e.g. hogs -- in urban SoCal
My wife plants new bulbs in our garden every other year (not because the old ones die, more because she forgets where she put them!), and she never digs them that deep -- and we're in N. Germany, about 53°N (albeit warmed by the Gulf Stream).
We have very well drained soil, though (it's mostly sand)
warpus
In pork I trust
That reads like a line in some hip hop track. Can I write the next line?
I'm talking about tulips and not about _______
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Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
There's a sentence that can be taken out of context.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
I wrote my above answer without asking my wife first, but when I did ask her, she confirmed that she plants large bulbs (tulips, daffodils, etc.) at about 8-10 cm, and smaller bulbs (narcissi, crocuses, etc.) at proportionately shallower depths.
She suggested though, that what triggers bulbs to sprout is passing through the cold spell over the winter -- so in Germany they might need to be planted shallower so that they can actually feel it (i.e. if they were deeper, they'd be better insulated from the cold?).
So I'm now not sure if that might have implications for SoCal, where it doesn't get cold (at all!) as close to the coast as you are. So was that depth recommendation specific to your more Mediterranean climate?
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