Pulling the Tension Bar Over | Main | The Boot Method with an Amateur Trap 

December 30, 2005

Getting Ready to Set the Trap

Many thanks to Erin for taking these photos of my filthy feet for this series -- she tried to warn me, but I had no idea my shoes and socks were this dirty! I had just walked the dog through our muddy Portland streets -- it's a dog footprint you see on my right sock -- but still ... man ... I'm going to clean my shoes more often. Well, anyway ...

Oh. Also, this lovely used trap was provided by my mother since I only had the "professional" style on hand. This brings up another reality of multi-rat killing using traps: Unless you're some kind of millionaire, you're going to end up re-using the traps. And that's the way it should be, if we're all going to reduce, reuse, recycle, blah blah blah. But still. It's gross.

One thing that I do to reduce my contact with gore is to put sandwich baggies on my hands when it's time to release the poor little ratty corpse. I don't use one when setting it because I don't really want to be slippery, but I have used props -- like the old metal candle snuffer I have, for instance -- for setting the trigger. It serves the same function in some ways as the butter knife, but I never actually eat off it. But you will have to use your hands to bring over the tension bar, and personally, I want to have a good grip when I do so. This is what soap was intended for. And don't bite your nails until you've washed.

*Update* Photos of my filthy feet! Now one of my top google referring terms! Many apologise to those looking for something else with that search term ...

set the trigger ...

Posted by mary at December 30, 2005 9:15 PM

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