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The key is to leave the traps in their path. How do you know their path? My brother-in-law’s parents were exterminators (they retired and sold the business). He basically told me that mice have no sphincters so whatever they eat goes through their system pretty quickly and you’ll see droppings almost on the spot. I bought 2 rat zappers when my apartment was having problems. All I did was put in batteries, set it in their suspected path. When the “mouse caught” light was blinking I turned the trap over into a bag and reset the zapper.
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In a bio lab, one is trained to pick up the mouse by his tail, lie him down on some surface where he can grip something with his hands, and then put 2 fingers behind back of his neck, and pull base of tail sharply to dislocate the neck. This kills him instantly.
One can then throw him away. The main problem with mice is not the mouse (they are so cute) it is the fact that they go to the bathroom on everything very frequently.
It is interesting that the animal protocols allow three ways to kill them which are considered painless.
1) Cervical dislocation from back of neck.
2) CO2 gas.
3) Decapitation with a big scissors from front of neck.
The latter is very much like shechita, so it seems science is now coming round to the fact that shechita is very humane, after all.
Pashuteh, how about sticking them in the freezer, would that be considered humane? Because, I read somewhere, that a humane way to take care of a sick pet gold fish, was to put it in the freezer.(when I had a fish tank, I would put them in the freezer, before they were flushed, letting the ice defrost first of course) I was just wondering would it work for a rodent?
Mazal, I really don’t know. I tend to doubt it, because it is probably a slow, uncomfortable death. I don’t know why that was recommended for goldfish.
One thing I want to warn people is to be very careful if you handle a live mouse, because they can bite and carry diseases. In labs they train you to hold skin in back of head very tight while holding tail so they can’t wiggle and bite.
One last thing: Wear gloves.
If you poison them, you don’t have to worry about how to kill them or getting bitten.
I just let my fish (when I had them) die on their own. Why euthanize them -who said they’re in pain when they’re sick?
OY OY OY OY! I am officially totally grossed out now! I could never bear to touch one of those things, nuch less kill it by twisting its neck or cutting with scissors.
omg!! GROSS!!!!! i was sleeping and woke up yet i was tired and had a lot to do so i went into the freezer room to get an ice pop to wake me up and all of a sudden i feel a CRUNCH under my foot and i was all groggy so i was like huh???!!! wut is that and i looked and went EEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! a FROZEN mouse ya know the creature with a white tummy a brown furry back a slimey tail EWWWWWWWW.
my parents were out of town so i didnt want to deal with it but if i leave it then it would be stinky rotten meat so i called my baal teshuvah friend who used to freeze mice to feed her pet snake and she said sure no prob and got it out GROSS!!!!!!!!!
I once had a similar type of experience. The school next door broke ground for expansion one summer, and one rainy night I went into my bathroom (the light was off) and I heard a PING PING PING sound. I was sure that there was a leaky roof from the storm and it sounded like the dripping was coming from the vicinity of my wastebasket. So I reached into the basket to see if it was wet and felt something very much alive, very warm, and very furry. I screamed so loudly, I woke up the entire household, and made my husband run out of the house in his PJs to empty the garbage pronto. I really wanted him to do away with the mouse, but he let it go. (yes, it came back in the next day, but I put out poison by that time and never saw it more than once after it came back).
heres the pic of reb shayala if you still want it
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Bodrogkeresztur/Reb_Shayele_files/6a2bkerestier.jpg
A very sad joke that was told by a kiruv rabbi– (don’t meant to start controversy)
A non-Torah clergy had a mouse problem. Went to three of his members and said–can you give me advice on how to get rid of them? One said, be kind and nice, and shower them with compliments. Didn’t work. Second one said, feed them–just feed them tons of good food, and then they’ll leave. Didn’t work. Third one said, “Gather them into the sanctuary and give them all a Bar Mitzvah.” They all left the next day.
lol that reminds me of a convo i had with some anti semite kid…he was going on about how jews ruled the world…(what can i say…we do :D)he kept asking me questions about the “great conspiracy” so i told him i was sworn to secrecy. he did a double take…a shocked look on his face…so i said “yeah…what do you think a Bar Mitzvah is?”
bombmaniac, that was classic. Next, tell him you’re canceling his magazine subscriptions since we control the media too.
Now… change your username, please?
lol im sorry OOTer…but me and this username go back too far :D:D:D
Why don’t you change your name to :D:D:D?
um mod im surprised- as ur making this go off topic….
Please see the two posts preceding mine
BS”D
I do want to mention again that Reb Shayale ZYA’s family cannot verify the story that led to his picture being used as a segula against mice.
However, a picture of a tzaddik in any room can serve as a powerful reminder to increase in our avoda. Reb Shayale ZYA certainly was a tzaddik and a tremendous baal chesed as well.
When it comes to mice though, call in a pro and make sure your home is properly sealed outside. If you’re in an area where feral cats have bred and live outside for generations it is a good idea to let them play in your yard as they chase the mice away before they get into the house. The perils of cat ownership, as well as their domesticity once allowed to live indoors, outweigh any benefits of bringing a cat into the house as a pet.
May I kindly say a chiddush now? Perhaps the word Mouse comes from the Hebrew word Maous (disgusting). There is a big book out that has many English words that he claims cam from Hebrew like Kaiser, Caeser, Czar from Hebrew word Keser (crown).
My now retired Rov gave a lecture on the book that you mentioned, and it is really fascinating. There are so many cognates in the English (and other) language(s) from Hebrew. The author posits that ALL words derive from Hebrew, which makes sense as that is the language Hashem created first. One of the most interesting words we use today is “copacetic,” and it derives from the Hebrew expression “Hakol b’seder” which was heard by American soldiers when speaking to Israeli military. The Americans asked if everything was ok, and the Israelis answered back hakol b’seder, which the Americans fractured as everything being “copacetic.”
might i ask what etymology has to do with science…?
bomb: anuran said: “My exposure to the science is minimal…” [emphasis added] meaning the science of linguistics, not just science in general.
I do know someone who posted several pictures around the house. The mouse went away. After the exterminator came.
BS”D
While looking for Hebrew roots to all words in all languages may be going too far, keep in mind that:
1) Jews lived all over the world.
2) Jews were traders and professionals – and usually very literate, which was one means of rising to the top until the next tzoirer came along.
3) At one time the Torah was studied in the original, by non-Jewish scholars and those studying to be galochim (lehavdil). Laha”k (not the jargon of Ben-Yehuda OLBM) was considered a classical language along with Latin and Greek even in US Colonial times, hence the laha”k on the shields of Yale and Columbia universities.
So, what does exist is Hebrew slang in other languages, such as this “copacetic” that seems to be confirmed, as well as “haver” for friend in Hungarian, which is even heard in commercials today, some slang words in Dutch etc. Mouse from mius seems a bit far-fetched.
Anuran, first of all, my Rov Emeritus, is not only a Scholar musmach with Yoreh Yoreh Yodden Yodden, but he is a secular Ph.D as well, and the lecture he gave was on the BOOK written by the linguistics scholar who posits the idea that all language derives from Hebrew (which it does). Hashem altered the language into 70(?) at the Migdal Bavel time, but there are still words that overlap in all languages that have origins in Hebrew. BTW, my Rov IS a linguist and a DIKDUK specialist.
BTW, Dr. Seuss was one of the first to investigate the Mouse/House phenomenon. He writes in Hop on Pop: Mouse House, Mouse on House. House Mouse, House on Mouse. Each is illustrated with appropriate diagrams.
Oomis, a lot depends on your Rov’s background. Was his PhD in linguistics or a something related? What sort of professional work did he do in the field? What got published in peer-reviewed journals? How was it received? As they say “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Did he provide enough and strong enough evidence to overturn the millions of man-years that have gone into our understanding of the history of languages?
Certainly, Jews lived in many parts of the world. But we didn’t live “everywhere”. And many places where we lived already had languages going back a long, long way. Even where there were plenty of Jews, not all of them spoke Hebrew very much. Not many of their neighbors picked up a lot of it.
Consider that the Mourner’s Kaddish and Talmud are in Aramaic because those were the language commonly spoken by Jews in that time and in that place. Insofar as there has been a noticeable effect of Jewish speech on European languages it has mostly been via Ladino or Yiddish which are themselves polyglots including a little Hebrew and a lot of Romance or Germanic bits and pieces.
If your Rov was being careful I’d bet dollars to ham and hold the stakes in my mouth that his thesis was a lot more conservative. Where there were Jews they had an effect on the speech of people around them. Some of this included Hebrew words which made their way – often heavily modified – into the language of the host country. No arguments there. But to say that Hebrew is the basis for any widely spoken non-Semitic language is not supported by the facts. Not in grammar. Not in structure. Not in written language. Not in vocabulary. Even Yiddish is much more an extremely Platt form of Deutsch than it is Hebrew.
My Rabbi has excellent advice on Torah, how to keep kosher, how to be a good Jew and – rarer and just as important – how to be a good husband and a decent human being. I listen to what he says. But when it comes to reconfiguring a router or doing cluster analysis on statistical data I’m better equipped by training and obsession.
Or to drag it back to the subject at hand Every cat his own rat
And that’s pretty much all I have to say on the subject. If you’d like to continue the discussion we can start a thread elsewhere. Or I give permission to the Moderators to give you my email address so we can take it off line.
Anuran, thanks, but I am exhausted after reading your post – I would never have the stamina for further discussion. My Rov is a retired teacher and published author, with an expertise in Hebrew grammar, as I said earlier, and studied linguistics as it relates to the Hebrew Language. I remind you again, he did not write the book, he SPOKE about it in a lecture on cognates and Hebrew. I can appreciate your comments, but I guess we will agree to disagree.
Here’s a picture of the Kerestirer Rebbe – put it up all over your house – Hatzlocha!
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Bodrogkeresztur/Reb_Shayele_files/6a2bkerestier.jpg
OK, I had to add this one…
A very good Gentile friend said “If Hebrew is the original source of all languages, how come your people’s menus are all in Chinese?”
😀
“A very good Gentile friend said “If Hebrew is the original source of all languages, how come your people’s menus are all in Chinese?”
LOL
Kilobear, I didn’t say mouse from mius, I said mouse from maus. Maus is the adjective, mius is a noun. I would say the English “Mess” comes from the Hebrew “Mius”, (isn’t that a coincidence?)
Anuran, while you write very authoritatively, Do you deny that the English word “Aura” comes from the Hebrew “Ora”? While the structure of many languages may be different than Hebrew, there seem to be many words that fit very well with the idea with an original Hebrew source.
Finally, Linguistics is one of those inexact sciences which is built upon much unprovable speculation. I personally also take much of archeology the same way, as people use their imagination to reconstruct big villages from a few shards of clay, and tell us all kinds of precise details which couldn’t possibly be known for sure.
BS”D
Typo. In any case, a Hebrew origin for mouse is not correct. The official name for a mouse is Mus (Latin, I believe). And no, the Roman soldiers in EY did not coin that name based on maus.
I am sure you are wrong about mess as well. This type of pseudo-scholarship does nothing for Torah or Yidden.
in Hebrew a mouse is an achbar, I believe. i could make a case for the first syllable, “ACH” being exactly what I would think if I saw a mouse in my house. 🙂
BS”D
OK I concede. Mouse IS from lahak via the Latin mus – from the word MAOZ, meaning fortress!
Roman soldiers found it so easy to penetrate the shlimazeldige fortresses built by the baryonim, sicarii etc that they likened them to mice. Others say that mouse comes from maoz because getting rid of mice is as difficult as penetrating a fortress.
Anyone who believes that can pay me $19.95 a month for the rest of their lives so I can have someone recite kapitel 256 at the kever of Charles Ponzi for a segulah against mice.
For $19.95 a month you could have enough cats to take care of an army of mice.
The CR is infested with mice threads!
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/any-weird-mouse-stories
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/does-roach-rabbi-or-riddex-work
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/mice-in-mein-hoiz
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/getting-rid-of-mice
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/rat-and-pest-removal
Link to the picture: http://tinyurl.com/mouserabbi (Note, YWN does not know whether this actually works)
Yup, the mice are out of control. Better get some Katz in here.
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