{"id":650,"date":"2026-04-23T17:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/?p=650"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:12:11","slug":"building-a-better-mouse-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/?p=650","title":{"rendered":"Building A Better Mouse Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our white house has one or more rats in it.\u00a0 We discovered a 2&#8243; hole that apparently is their access.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_653\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-653\" style=\"width: 1711px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-653\" src=\"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5240_hole-scaled.webp\" alt=\"White shingled exterior wall with a 2&quot; hole and dirt smudges below the hole.\" width=\"1711\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5240_hole-scaled.webp 1711w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5240_hole-201x300.webp 201w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5240_hole-1069x1600.webp 1069w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5240_hole-768x1149.webp 768w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5240_hole-1027x1536.webp 1027w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5240_hole-1369x2048.webp 1369w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1711px) 100vw, 1711px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-653\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>While traditional trapping and rat zappers work from time to time, preventing rats from entering is the priority.\u00a0 But, I don&#8217;t want to hinder their exit and I do not like resorting to traps, I&#8217;d prefer they just leave.<\/p>\n<p>So I built a better mousetrap that lets the rats leave, but never return.\u00a0 It has a wire screen that a rat could push and then nudge its way out, but when the rat returns, it cannot lift the screen for access and is prevented entry.<\/p>\n<p>One might wonder if the yellow objects hanging to keep the screen against the hole are hunks of cheddar cheese.\u00a0 No, dear reader, they are two 24k gold bars [simulated]\u00a0 that keep the screen over the hole and hopefully will entice the rats to exit.\u00a0 Fox News advises that gold in a white house is very fashionable these days.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_657\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-657\" style=\"width: 1525px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-657\" src=\"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5253_trap-scaled.webp\" alt=\"mousetrap with hardware cloth affixed to a wall over a 2&quot; hole with gold bars hanging to keep the hole covered by the hardware cloth\" width=\"1525\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5253_trap-scaled.webp 1525w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5253_trap-179x300.webp 179w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5253_trap-953x1600.webp 953w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5253_trap-768x1289.webp 768w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5253_trap-915x1536.webp 915w, https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DSC_5253_trap-1220x2048.webp 1220w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1525px) 100vw, 1525px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-657\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Trap preventing re-entry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our white house has one or more rats in it.\u00a0 We discovered a 2&#8243; hole that apparently is their access. While traditional trapping and rat zappers work from time to time, preventing rats from entering is the priority.\u00a0 But, I don&#8217;t want to hinder their exit and I do not like resorting to traps, I&#8217;d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[120,119],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-rat-trap","tag-satire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salemdata.net\/johnpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}