ROSIE: Before we dive in today, I just want to tell listeners: we’re planning a special episode for the holidays. So we’re going to try and have our listeners stump Wirecutter’s in-house gifting experts. We wanna hear your hardest to shop for gift recipients. So send us a voice memo, tell us who in your life is hardest to shop for. What makes them that way? What kinds of things they like, what kinds of things they don’t like. What are their quirks, what are their caveats? We’ll play these on our show for our gifting team and see if we can stump them. Plus you’ll walk away with some great gifting ideas. Ok, so record these on your phone just as a voice memo and send the message to thewirecuttershow@wirecutter.com. And thanks!
ROSIE: Guys I just… I just took my fall trip home to Maine, which was so nice. It’s so cozy up there. However, I went to put my head on the pillow at night. It’s so quiet, I’m out of the city. And then I heard the telltale scritch scratching in the walls.
CHRISTINE: Oh my gosh!
ROSIE: The mice have moved indoors. I mean you can’t blame them – the weather is getting cooler, ‘tis the season! But it is the worst.
CAIRA: I hate that.
CHRISTINE: I think generally rodents do move inside during the fall because they’re looking for warmth and for food but that’s super gross I’m so sorry. Have you ever had a mouse, Caira?
CAIRA: Yes. In my very first New York apartment, I discovered I had a mouse when it dropped from the ceiling onto my chest in the middle of the night. I was in mental and emotional turmoil. I was so concerned. I didn’t sleep for probably two weeks until the problem was solved later. It was just…
ROSIE: I’m so sorry. That sounds really harrowing.
CHRISTINE: That is definitely one way to find out you have a mouse problem. And I wish that on no one, but my worst enemies.And you’re not one of them. So, um, but it’s not just a disruption of your comfort though. Mice carry a bunch of nasty stuff. They have parasites like mites, ticks, fleas. They can bring these all into your home. And they can chew through things like electrical wires. And that can lead, potentially, to a house fire. So, some serious issues. It’s not, it’s, it’s not a minimal.
ROSIE: Also they’re pooping everywhere. On your counters. It’s not it.
CAIRA: Not it. That’s why I’m so grateful to bring Doug Mahoney in today to chat with us because he is a Wirecutter journalist who covers all things home improvement. When it comes to this particular problem, Doug is no stranger. He actually lives in the woods in New Hampshire and that poses so many challenges for him to solve, including dealing with rodents.
CHRISTINE: We have a ton of ground to cover. I mean, Doug is such an expert here, and he’s going to be able to walk us through how to tell, first of all, if you have a rodent problem in your home and what you should do about it, how to keep mice and rats from getting into your home in the first place, and what kind of traps to use.
CAIRA: We’ll also cover which rodent killers you definitely should not use and why.
ROSIE: Morbidly and regrettably interested in hearing about all of this from our gonzo journalist, Doug Mahoney.
CAIRA: Doug!
CHRISTINE: We’re going to take a quick break and when we come back, Doug Mahoney, see you soon.
CAIRA: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. With us now is Doug Mahoney, who is an OG Wirecutter journalist. He’s been here for over a decade. He’s our resident home improvement and bug repellent expert, and he wrote our guide to mousetraps. He’s got personal experience with mouse infestations… and he’s also dealt with rats. We’ll talk about that later.
CHRISTINE: Hey, Doug, welcome to the show.
DOUG: Thanks for having me.
CHRISTINE: I’m really pumped to have you here. Doug, you and I have worked together for a long time, and I think something that’s really fascinating about you and the way that you test for Wirecutter is where you’re testing. You live on a farm up in New Hampshire, right?
DOUG: Yes, I do.
CHRISTINE: Can you paint a picture for us of sort of what your farm looks like?
DOUG: It is more, I would consider it a small family farm or a homestead, I guess. We raise a bunch of animals for food, for various other reasons. We always have a flock of sheep. We always have chickens. And I, we often raise pigs. For a while, I had a dairy cow and her calf. But for the most part, we always have sheep. We always have chickens.
CHRISTINE: And this is, this hobby farm basically, is a place that you tend to get rodents, right? You tend to get mice and rats that are attracted to these animals, right?
DOUG: Yes, definitely. And it was, it really wasn’t until I had the cow that the pests really started to show up.
CAIRA: What about the cows brings them?
DOUG: I really don’t know. I think it might have something to do with the style of manure they have. It’s very different from that of a sheep or that of a chicken. Huh.
ROSIE: The, uh, The style of manure.
DOUG: It’s a much more abundant dropping.
CAIRA: Oh my god.
DOUG: And it stays too. Like sheep are, their droppings just sort of disappear after a few rains, but cows will sit for a year.
ROSIE: Highly recommend the children’s book, Everyone Poops, which goes into some of this. And I read it almost every night.
CAIRA: To your children.
CHRISTINE: Yes.
ROSIE: No, I didn’t. That’s not what I said.
CHRISTINE: Doug, you live in an old farmhouse too, right? So there’s probably lots of nooks and crannies where little rodents like to hide and wiggle through.
DOUG: Yes. Yes. My house is 251 years old. It was built in 1773. It’s older than the country and uh, it has a fieldstone foundation and modern framing is done in such a way to sort of prohibit that floor to floor movement by animals. But my house doesn’t have that.
CHRISTINE: So you basically have like the perfect test space to test out rodent control gear.
DOUG: Yes.
CAIRA: Well, we’re going to get into it. But first, Doug, you got a lightning round quiz for us.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. You’re going to test our, our rodent IQ
DOUG: Okay, so are we ready?
CAIRA: We’re ready. Ready.
DOUG: The first question, what is the official name for a group of mice? A. A scurry of mice. B. A nest of mice. C. A run of mice. Or D. a mayhem of mice.
CAIRA: D! Come on, Rosie.
ROSIE: It’s not a mayhem. It’s gotta be a scurry.
DOUG: A scurry. A scurry is actually a group of squirrels. So, a group of mice is known as a nest of mice.
CHRISTINE: I was gonna say nest. That was the obvious one, and I was like, I’m not going for the obvious one.
CAIRA: I was thinking like a murder of crows. Right. A mayhem of mice.
DOUG: But, a group of rats is called a mischief. So that, you may have been thinking of a mischief also.
ROSIE: Okay, pretty good. All right, what else you got?
DOUG: Uh, mice are instrumental in spreading what disease? A. Malaria. B. Cat scratch fever. C. Lyme. Or D. Shingles.
CAIRA: B.
CHRISTINE: A.
ROSIE: I think A.
DOUG: It is actually a Lyme. Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Oh! Why? Is it because the ticks stick on to the mice?
DOUG: Yeah. So deer ticks are, you know, the most commonly associated insect with Lyme. And so people kind of tend to associate deer, but one of the main carriers is actually mice.
ROSIE: Wow. How could you, how would you get Lyme from a mouse?
DOUG: Well, you wouldn’t. You would get it through the tick, but the mice are carriers of it, and then the ticks latch onto the mice, get the feeding, and then, And then they like hop off, And then move on to a human.
CHRISTINE: So you could technically have mice in your home, and a tick comes in on them, and then the tick, like, attaches itself to you.
DOUG: Yes.
CHRISTINE: Okay. Wow. More things to worry about. Great. Thank you so much.
DOUG: So the next question: a mouse can fit through a hole the size of what? A. a quarter, B. a nickel, or C. a dime?
CAIRA: A nickel.
CHRISTINE: I’m going to say a dime.
ROSIE: I’m going to say a nickel.
DOUG: It’s a dime. Wow! And actually, I was looking online, a lot of rodentologists, even, reduce that to the size of a number two pencil for smaller mice.
CHRISTINE:Wild! What does their, like, skeleton fold in on itself? Is it like an X-Man or something?
DOUG: They just need to get their head through and they have those long, narrow heads.
CAIRA: That makes sense though. Like it’s the same with cats. You see cats just get through anything as long as they can fit their skull in there.
CHRISTINE: Let’s talk a little bit about mice, and we’ll talk about rats later. But, Doug, what’s the first sign, like, if you aren’t sure that you have mice, but you’re maybe suspicious? Like, what are the things you should look out for in your home that would kind of indicate that you have a mouse problem?
DOUG: I would say the two biggest would be nibbled food. If you look in your pantry, you might, like a cereal box. Those are sort of prime targets for mice. Also just, um, droppings. Just finding droppings down in the basement. They just look like really small grains of black rice is basically what they look like.
ROSIE: So if you haven’t bought any black rice recently, and you see some in the pantry.
DOUG: Yeah, it’s time to, uh, time to do something about it.
CHRISTINE: What about sounds? I’ve been at people’s homes before, and I’ve heard, like, scratching in the walls. Is that a sign?
DOUG: Sure. Yes, definitely. Yeah, you can definitely hear them scurrying around in the walls.
CAIRA: I’ve had that in my apartment. I could hear them trying to chew through the floorboards at night.
DOUG: Oh, that, like when they, [arck arck arck]
CAIRA: Oh, yeah, it’s like, [crunch crunch crunch]
ROSIE: It’s the soundtrack to my childhood. That scritch scratch, scritch scratch, and they’re running, doing laps. It’s haunting. What sucks is like, it feels like they’re right on top of you, but they’re just behind the baseboard.
DOUG: Yeah, it can really feel like an invasion of your space.
ROSIE: So, what’s then the first step to take when wanting to get rid of the problem? Is it panic clean? Or just panic?
DOUG: Well, clean, hopefully not panic. But you really want to, like with any pest, whether it’s ants or mice, really the first thing you want to do is just clean up. They are there for a reason. The reason is usually food or shelter. So if you can eliminate those two things, you just make your house less desirable. It’s a matter of cleaning up, making sure your kitchen’s cleaned up, clean out the little crumb tray in your toaster, clean behind the toaster, all those little crumbs. It may also mean fortifying your pantry a little more, whether it’s putting things in Tupperwares or decanting into mason jars, but you really want to just make sure that whatever. The mouse is there for it’s just less easy for them to get it,
CHRISTINE: Doug, how about patching up holes? Earlier you mentioned that mice can fit through a hole the size of a No. 2 pencil, but what do you do to patch up just different sized holes?
DOUG: Yeah well that ,you know, you definitely want to , if you can, check out the exterior of your house, usually it’s around the foundation. They’re not really known for climbing up the side of a house. So, it’s sort of looking at that ground level and seeing if there’s any cracks in the foundation. If you have a fieldstone foundation, try and isolate the areas– with a fieldstone foundation, you could use a cement product to sort of patch the holes. Other holes – like a small hole in kind of like a wood area, like if it’s through your siding, you can use a really good flexible sealant. I know some people use spray foam, the triple expanding spray foam, that really fills the space Additionally, you could jam a Brillo pad into the space if it’s a larger space and then spray foam that. That is actually particularly good because the spray foam locks everything into place and then the hole has this sort of uneven metal shape that’s coated with soap, which is unappealing to the mouse too.
CAIRA: Yeah, I remember in my very first apartment, the one where the mice were chewing through the floorboards, unfortunately, my super did use a Brillo pad and he secured the hole, but then he ended up trapping the mice in my apartment. So I had to go to the next step, which is to buy traps. But in preparing for this, we read the guides and it seems like most of the traps that you recommend are kill traps.
DOUG: Yes.
CAIRA: Is that the most ethical way to get rid of mice?
DOUG: It actually is. There’s a number of styles of kill traps, and then there are what’s known as humane traps. And those are where you, they’re sort of, they’re also called catch and release traps, where you catch the mouse, and the theory is that you catch it live, and then you go down the road X number of miles, and you drop the mouse off. There’s a couple problems with those. One is that it may be illegal in your area. Relocating wildlife is often illegal. You’re essentially just making it someone else’s problem in a way, which isn’t, you know, not really what you want to do. But the other problem with the humane traps is that you need to really stay on top of them. Because if you have a humane trap and a mouse gets caught in it, I mean, you really have to be at it the next day. If you forget it’s in your basement, then the mouse will dehydrate or starve. If it’s a trap that can catch multiple mice, then the mice would start attacking each other, and that’s sort of a vicious scene. Even if everything works out really well, you get right to the mouse, and then you go and you, you drive it 10 miles down the road, and you let it go in a field. The problem is that mice are not really designed for new environments. They don’t really go very far from where they live and where they’re born. So any mouse that’s, like, set out in the wild is going to end up either starving, or dehydrating, or being eaten by a predator, because they’re pretty clueless once they get out there. They don’t know where the food sources are. They don’t know where water is. So, you know, none of those results are better for the mouse than a snap trap, which is just a very, very quick instantaneous kill.
CHRISTINE: I remember years ago, in one of my first Brooklyn apartments, my landlord got a glue trap, and it was probably the most horrific thing I’ve seen. It’s like a little pool of glue, and the rodent gets stuck in it, and then I don’t know what the plan is after that, like, are you supposed to?…
CAIRA: You just toss it.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I mean, I know that I probably should have killed it with a frying pan or something, but I just threw it out into the garbage. And I know that that was probably the wrong thing to do. Was that the wrong thing to do?
DOUG: Well, not really. So, those are sticky traps. And those are really not good, because they’re not a humane trap. It’s a kill trap, but you’re supposed to get the mouse stuck there and then they just die, whether they get their mouth involved in the stickiness or they just starve because they can’t move. I’ve also read that they’re not particularly effective because they only catch younger mice. I guess older mice have a little more sensitive hairs on their paws, so they can kind of sense the stickiness and they sort of stay away from it. But when I moved into my house, I went up in the attic and there’s like big sticky pads up there with these little mouse skeletons on it and it’s just like, uh, it’s just not the way to do it.
ROSIE: That is not it. That’s not how you wanna go.
CAIRA: I don’t like that.
CHRISTINE: But there is a right way to do it, right?
CAIRA: Yeah. so you do recommend kill traps on the site. I just imagine a classic Tom and Jerry snap trap with a little classic cheese wedge on it. Is that the snap trap that you recommend?
DOUG: Yes, well, pretty much, so what we recommend, they’re called the snap trap, which is the classic mouse trap. And a company named Victor makes the classic wooden ones, which work. They all have the same effectiveness. There’s not like one is particularly better or more deadly than the other one. But when you sort of move up the ladder, what you’re getting are these more convenience features which are going to be particularly important to people who aren’t used to dealing with mice. And that comes down to two things. One is they’re easier to set, and the other one is they’re easier to empty. So, the one we recommend is by Tomcat, and when you set it, it’s just a matter of flipping this tab back. You don’t really have to get involved. I don’t know if anybody’s ever done the classic Victor Trap, where you have to get that little copper bar sort of balanced on that little piece, and then you snap your fingers. So on the Tomcat, all you do is just fold this piece back and it’s set. And then once it kills a mouse, and then you just fold that piece back again, and then you can release the mouse.
CAIRA: Why are you releasing the mouse if it’s dead? What do you mean?
DOUG: Just to put in the trash and then you can reuse your trap.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Can you, can you just explain what the Tomcat press style looks like? They’re like plastic, right? They have claws. It’s a little more robust.
DOUG: It looks sort of like a souped up version of the wooden snap trap, except the pieces are more robust. Like, it’s not a little copper bar, it’s sort of this plastic jaw. And then there’s like an extra piece, which is that lever. They’re a little bit larger than a matchbox. It’s the same principle, though.
ROSIE: What are you baiting the traps with?
DOUG: There are two standards. One is peanut butter, and the other is Nutella. And they are irresistible. Almost irresistible, maybe.
ROSIE: I have a bone to pick. I did some field–I didn’t do some field research. I talked to my dad, this poor guy. He retired years ago, but is still moonlighting as a mouse extinguisher. And he has gone through all the different peanut butters, he’s got these little guys the organic, the chunky, they have, I swear, developed a taste and recognized that they get fed better if they keep eluding these traps. So now apparently he splits a peanut in four parts and wedges it in there and that is apparently foolproof. Until they figure that out But usually Nutella?
DOUG: That’s dedication.
ROSIE: When you’re 30 years in. But, so, Nutella and peanut butter? Are good ways to go?
DOUG: Generally speaking, yeah.
CHRISTINE: And when you’re testing these traps to see how they work, how are you doing this exactly? Are you setting out a bunch of traps in your home or are you going to another location? How do you go about that?
DOUG: Well, we do two kinds of testing. One is we just use the traps, set them and trip them and set them and trip them, see how easy they are. We’re sort of simulating what they’re like to use. And then I also use them, like we talked about my property is a haven for rodents. We have mice in our house all the time, so I use them in my basement. My office is in sort of like a workshop barn and so I use them out there also.
CAIRA: Wow. And do you have any best methods for making sure that your traps are effective, places that you’d like to put them that you know will catch a mouse?
DOUG: Yeah, well mice are pretty defensive creatures. So you never want to set a mouse trap in the middle of a room… a mouse will never get to it. Mice travel along a wall. So the best thing to do is to sort of find out where you see the signs of mice and then you can set traps up on the wall and you can set up multiple traps, too. It’s not like you just can put out one. So if you think you have a larger mouse problem, you can set out three or four.
CAIRA: I saw mentioned in your guide that you said that you could put two traps next to each other because sometimes a mouse will hop over one onto the other one.
DOUG: Yep.
CAIRA: That’s insane!
DOUG: Yeah. Yeah.
CHRISTINE: That’s a great point around these rodents being smart enough to jump over one trap to the next. I think a lot of people might have some ethical feelings about killing rodents that might be in their home. Are there any options for people if they don’t want to kill the rodents? What do you say to people who are struggling with this? They have something in their home, they probably don’t want it there, but they also don’t want to kill it.
DOUG: Uh, it’s sort of a tough conversation. I mean, they can live with the mice, but they’re not really a creature you want to cohabitate with in your house. They can destroy food. They can chew through wiring. They can carry diseases. So you really, I mean, you should do something about it. You could pass on the work to a pest control operator if you don’t want to do the traps yourself, which I completely understand, but something should be done about the mice in your house.
CHRISTINE: Or you just move! You buy a new home. Or you just buy a new home.
CAIRA: Give it to them.
DOUG: That’s, that’s the humane thing to do.
ROSIE: That’s the pull quote from this episode, buy a new home. Well, actually, one thing that we haven’t discussed, can you just skip it all and get a cat? I mean, I’m allergic, but it sounds better than having to deal with a snap trap.
DOUG: Well, yeah, the cat kind of raises an interesting thing. First of all, it depends which cat. We have three cats. One of them is a turbo hunter, and the other two are much less so. But also, I think there have been studies done where when a rodent senses a predator is nearby, it will sort of retreat. So you could possibly be driving mice sort of further into your home with a cat.
ROSIE: That would be unfortunate.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. I live in New York City, and I have had a couple mice over the years, one the first morning of my first baby being home, and my cats caught it, which, yay. But they do seem to keep them out. It’s not a universal fix, right? It’s just, it depends on the cat.
DOUG: Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I am pro-cat. I’m not saying not to get a cat, but it’s not necessarily something you can always rely on, I guess.
CAIRA: I also have a cat, but he doesn’t do anything. So, that’s not reliable. What I’m hearing is you should definitely get a kill trap because they’re the most ethical way to fix your mouse problem. You shouldn’t rely on a cat. And you should make sure that you’re cleaning everything so that, like, you know, the rodents don’t want to be in your house in the first place, right?
ROSIE: Yep. And peanut butter and Nutella on the trap for bait unless you live in the Guerin household. Because apparently they can lick that right off.
DOUG: And if it doesn’t work, you just move.
CHRISTINE: Right, that’s right.
ROSIE: Pack it up.
CHRISTINE: We’re going to take a quick break and when we come back we’re going to talk about everyone’s favorite topic, rats. Oh my. And we’re also going to talk a little bit about the things that you really should avoid when dealing with a rodent problem, we’ll be right back.
ROSIE: A mischief, after the break.
CAIRA: Welcome back to The Wirecutter Show. This episode is all about rodents and practical advice and suggestions for people who are actively fighting them. Our guest is Doug Mahoney, a journalist here at Wirecutter who writes about home improvement and has written and reported extensively on rodents and how to be rid of them.
CHRISTINE: Earlier in the show, Doug, we talked to you about how to tell if you have a rodent problem, what kind of traps you should and shouldn’t use, and the best practices for successfully catching rodents.
CAIRA: And now we’re going to talk a little bit about something that literally sends shivers down my spine. Rats. So, how do you deal with rats, Doug? Because in my personal experience, in New York City, a rat will run up on you. So what do you do?
DOUG: Yeah, so rats are different. You use the same type of trap, a snap trap. They’re much larger, the ones designed for rats, but it’s the same principle. The difference is in how intelligent rats are. So you have to do it a different way. You can’t just put out a snap trap and expect a rat to just come into it. So, rats are, they’re really smart, they’re really suspicious, they have a hierarchy too, within their group, which is called a mischief. And what they do is if they see a new food source, one of the lower level rats will go and check it out. And then if that food source then kills the lower level rat, then all of the other rats know that they should just stay away from it.
CHRISTINE: Oh my God, they’re so smart.
DOUG: Yeah. So, the way to deal with rats is that it takes time and not everybody is going to want to do it. So What you have to do is you have to get a bunch of snap traps. You have to get, say, 10 or 15 snap traps. And for this, I would always recommend just get the least expensive, the victor wooden ones. So there’s the little victors for mice, and then there’s the rat sized ones.
CHRISTINE: They’re the kind that would, like, catch your whole foot?
DOUG: Oh yeah. They’re big.
CAIRA: What happens if you mess up when you’re trying to set it yourself?
DOUG: They give a little bite, yeah. It’s, you know….like I said, this is not a method for everybody. So what you do is you buy a bunch of traps, say 10 or 15 traps, and you bait them, but you don’t set them. And then, the next day you check them and presumably all the bait is gone, all the peanut butter is gone. And then you go back and you bait them again. And then you do this again, and again, and again, and again, and again. It’s up to, say, I’ve done this before and I did it for about two weeks or so where you just bait them and then you don’t set the traps. And then the rats, as a group, become comfortable with these traps as a food source. So then you pick your night and then you bait all your traps and then you set all of your traps. You start catching a lot of rats. It’s an active process. You catch a lot of rats, and then you want to go and clean out the traps. And it may be like 20, 30 minutes later.
ROSIE: Why is that?
DOUG: Because they’ll all get tripped. The rats are so comfortable with this is a food source. They’re going to come out, and then they’re going to trip, say, six of these traps. Because there’s also another thing to sort of step back. If you’re seeing signs, this is applicable to rats and mice, if you’re seeing signs of rats or mice, you already have a bit of a problem. There’s never just just one rat or one mouse.They are very, very, very prolific. So you want to clean out the traps and then just instantly rebate them. And reset them, and then a half hour goes by, go down and check them again, do the same thing. And you’ll catch a lot more rats than you think that you might have.
ROSIE: So you just play act as Father Christmas for two weeks. Just gifting these rats. And then you bring the hammer down.
DOUG: Yeah, because if you just put out one snap trap like you would with a mouse, because mice aren’t very discerning, they’re not as suspicious as rats are, so like a mouse would just see a new food source and go to it and then it’ll get taken by the trap and then you’ll have a trap right next to it and another mouse would just walk up to it. They don’t quite put two and two together so much.
CHRISTINE: Okay, so Doug, setting all these traps for two weeks and then having this like night of catching all the rats, it sounds like so much work. Why not just put out some rat poison?
DOUG: So, rat poison. You really don’t want to get involved with rat poison. Well, the most important reason is secondary poisoning. So, rat poisons are not an instantaneous kill. So, a rat eats the poison and then sort of its body breaks down. It takes about three or four days for the rat to die. So during those days, the rat is slowing down, and so then it’s ripe pickings for predators. Raptors or owls will eat the dying rodent, and then they ingest the poison. So then they’ll have the poison in them. And so that’s been proven to have some really negative effects on the raptor population and on the owl population. Also, another downside of poisons is that, like I said, it’s not an instant kill, so then the rat, in its sickness will crawl into the wall, and that’s where it’ll die, you know?
CHRISTINE: And presumably, it’s a lot of suffering for the rat to be dying that way, rather than just a quick kill, right?
DOUG: Yeah, I mean the snap trap is instantaneous.
CHRISTINE: And to your point about birds eating a rat, that could also be potentially an issue for a cat or a pet in your home, right? Like, there could be some issue with another animal eating the rat.
DOUG: Definitely. I mean, it’s, like, the larger the animal is, the less the immediate threat is, but you still don’t want your dog ingesting rat poison.
ROSIE: And you don’t want a rat dying in your walls and starting to smell.
CAIRA: At what point do you just give up and call a professional?
DOUG: That line is going to be really different for everybody. If you’re somebody who you just don’t want to deal with traps, you’re on the squeamish side, then that’s going to happen pretty quick. If you’re more of a handy, do-it-yourself person, you want to really tackle it yourself, then you’ll try traps. I mean, there will be a point in a situation where it just becomes sort of overwhelming. It’s really a personal decision.
ROSIE: Let’s normalize asking for help.
CAIRA: But you also did mention earlier that if you’re really trying, you’re getting your hands dirty, but you don’t see progress, maybe after a week, two weeks, maybe you should also just ask for help.
DOUG: I would say, if you’re dealing with mice and not rats, if you don’t see any change in a week, two weeks, It might be time to call somebody.
CHRISTINE: Okay. So this has been pretty intense. I feel like there’s a lot of great, but also sort of gross information we just learned. Let’s lighten the mood a little bit. Doug, you are such an expert on this topic, and if I had to vote to have a group of people on my apocalypse island, you would definitely be one of them.
CAIRA: You’re it.
INDIANA JONES MUSIC
CHRISTINE: So, I want to play a little choose your own adventure game….you are Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade. You are in the Venice sewer with all of those rats. Do you remember that scene?
DOUG: I do. Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Okay, so you can bring three things with you to get out alive. It’s the rat apocalypse. What are those three things that you bring?
DOUG: I would want to get out. I don’t think I’d want to deal with the rats. I would want some sort of protective gear And then a way out.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. So, like, boots?
DOUG: Yeah, like a full body thing. Like a helmet.
CAIRA: Like a hazmat suit?
DOUG: Yeah, a hazmat suit.
ROSIE How about a scuba diving…?
CHRISTINE: Yeah, a scuba diving suit?
DOUG: Oh, yeah.
ROSIE: Scuba Doug. Scuba Doug and the rats. That’s your band name. You can have that one for free.
DOUG: There you go. Wow.
CHRISTINE: And then some kind of, like large drone to fly you out of there or?
DOUG: Yeah. Yeah, we’ll go with that.
ROSIE: I think the point is, if you’re in that situation, get out. Get out as soon as you can.
CAIRA: It’s a lost cause.
CAIRA: Okay, Doug. Well, before we wrap, we like to ask all of our guests one final question. What was the last product that you bought that you absolutely love?
DOUG: The last product I bought that I absolutely love is a, this is not gonna be a universal thing, but it’s a fruit press. I got a fruit press.
CHRISTINE: Like fruit as in like apples and oranges?
DOUG: It’s like a cider, a cider press.
CHRISTINE: Oh, a cider press.
DOUG: Basically, yeah. So we have a bunch of very, very large, mature apple trees on our property. And I had actually made a cider press myself. It was so dangerous that I would, like, my kids would have to go across the yard whenever, like, Daddy was pressing cider. Because I was worried this thing would, like, kick out and throw things. So then I finally was like, okay, I’m going to invest in, we have so many apples, I’m going to invest in, like, a real official fruit press. So I bought a fruit press and I made, in the first year, I made over 30 gallons of cider.
CHRISTINE: Wow. Just from your properties?
DOUG: Just from my property.
CHRISTINE: Wow. And what’s the name of the fruit press?
DOUG: It’s the Pleasant Hill Fruit Press.
CAIRA: You’re like a bonafide Ciderian. I learned that word the other day.
DOUG: Ciderian? Is that a real word?
CAIRA: Yeah, it is. It is.
ROSIE: Homesteader, Ciderian. Indiana, Doug. Thanks for joining us, Doug. Thanks for joining us, Doug.
DOUG: Yeah, it’s been great to be here.
CAIRA: Wow. Um, I am kind of grossed out, but Doug was amazing.
CHRISTINE: It really was.
ROSIE: Grossed out, but enlightened.
CAIRA: Enlightened. Like, love to see him, hate to hear what he’s preaching, I guess.
ROSIE: What did you learn?
CAIRA: I think my biggest takeaway is, uh, snap, don’t trap. Like, just kill them. Don’t try to be nice. You know, just do it.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. I feel like I will probably feel bad the next time I have to set a trap, but I’m going to know that it’s the right thing to do. Yeah.
ROSIE: Or at least the most humane.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. I mean, it’s right, yeah. Let’s not say right or wrong. Let’s just say like the most humane. It’s going to be the least suffering for the animal. Um, all right, my takeaway is that if you see droppings, you’ve got a problem. You already have a problem. This isn’t like a baby problem. This is probably like… it means you probably have a lot of things already in your house. You probably already have a lot of mice.
CAIRA: They’re everywhere. In the walls!
CHRISTINE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ROSIE: Don’t lie to yourself and pretend.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, don’t don’t put your head in the sand.
ROSIE: It’s just the one. Yeah, well, similarly, I think all of that is true. But prevailing feeling of like it’s not your fault, number one. And also there’s really only so much you can do. I mean, especially like you guys, you live in the city. You can only control what you can control. I mean, you can control your house, you can control your crumbs, but you’re living on top of other people and, you know, people are going to do what they do.
CHRISTINE: I mean, that’s again, we’re going to bring the moving thing up because if you really have a problem and it’s not, your neighbors are not with you, then they’re against you.
ROSIE: Say goodbye to that security deposit and get out of Dodge.
CAIRA: It’s worth it.
ROSIE: Well, that’s it for us this week. If you want to find out more about Wirecutter’s coverage and check out Doug’s reporting on rodent extermination, or if you want to check out any of the products we recommended today, go to nytimes.com/Wirecutter, or you can find a link in the show notes, as ever.
CAIRA: Here’s what’s coming up next week on The Wirecutter Show.
MICHAEL: I’m very precious about my cast iron. I always tell my husband, like don’t wash that! That’s mine. He leaves it to the side.
CAIRA: Make sure you’re following the show on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss it. The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Editing by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Massiello and Nick Pittman. Today’s episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Original music by Dan Powell, Marian Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s Deputy Publisher and Interim General Manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s Editor in Chief. I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin.
CHRISTINE: Thanks for listening.
