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It turns out that when we turned on the washing machine the water was leaking out of the hole in the pipe that the mouse had chewed and onto the hole in the electricity cable that the mouse had chewed and that is why the power to the whole house went out.
Original is here on instagram.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

dewline

*winces*

Oy.

From:

cmcmck

This is when they become not only a pest but a dangerous pest.

From:

movingfinger

Yikes! Glad it just shorted the house instead of, well. They are awful... I know there have been mice in the walls here and I just hope they are not chewing on old romex wiring like that.

From:

agoodwinsmith

Oh boy.

I'm glad you found it; now how to prevent it again. Argh.

We've had limited success with stuffing steel wool (chore boy - fine metal coils matted together and used for scrubbing) into holes. They won't nibble the steel wool, but it must be wedged beyond mouse strength to pull out. Mice can collapse their ribcages, so every tiny little hole needs addressing.

Cats are less of a deterant than one would think.[1]

Good luck.

[1] *tangent* - in fact, Our Sam spent one winter on the bald prairie and said fuck that shit, and the following fall started stocking our house with mice - plumping up the larder for hard times, sort of thing. It got to the point that I made him meow outside the door before letting him in. If he said, "mewph" he didn't get in.

From:

original_aj

Steel wool works, we used it in combination with expanding foam spray to hold it in place. Also making sure there is no food accessible anywhere for them, which is hard with small kids! We have everything in wall cupboards that isn't in unknawable containers. They still occasionally pass through but they don't stay if there's nothing to eat.

From:

agoodwinsmith

Yes. However, looking at those two pieces of infrastructure, I'd say the mouse/mice found the coatings to be tasty enough. I recall something from about five years ago where mice and squirrels were going to town on the wiring and hoses in new cars. It turned out the wiring coating and hoses were made of soy. So one definitely needs a non-mouse-palatable replacement.