Mouse In the House – What Should You Do Now
Did you find a mouse in the house? Are you sure it was a mouse, and not a rat? If you are not sure if it was a rat or a mouse, then it was probably a mouse. Mice are much smaller and much more common than rats. Rats are always near water, so coastal areas will see more rats than the average population. Mice are truly everywhere, and they are most common in the winter months.
If you have a mice infestation, then you should know that a house cat can’t get rid of the mice himself. This is one of the common myths about mice. Mice reproduce very quickly, and a house cat won’t be able to keep up with a rapidly expanding mice population. Your four legged friend may alert you that you have a problem, but you need more than your feline to get rid of them forever.
Mice infestations don’t start in the kitchen. If you are finding droppings in the kitchen cabinets, this means you already have a bad infestation. You don’t have to find a mouse in the house to know you have a bad infestation. You don’t want to look for live mice. I was personally in the pest control industry for two years, and I only saw live mice on three occasions. Mice poop all the time, so you want to look for their droppings. Mice dropping are about the size of a grain of rice.
If you are trying to figure out if you have them, there are three places to look. If you have a garage, look along the walls in the garage first. You may find droppings along the wall. Mice usually travel along ledges and walls. For this reason, you should check all along the walls in the garage. They are very common in the garage because the garage door is not sealed well. The rubber that runs along the bottom of a garage door starts to curl up after a few years, and this makes it easy to get a mouse in the house.
Once they get in the garage, they could go anywhere in the house. You don’t want to put holes in your walls, so head up to your attic. See if there is any activity in the attic area. If you have a pull down stair that goes up into the attic, you will often find droppings falling out of the door as you pull the door down from the ceiling. Check the door first, and then check along the rafters and other areas of the attic. Check inside storage boxes and other areas too. There are many areas where they may be hiding. Squirrel droppings and bat droppings are also common in attics, but mice droppings are the most common pests in the attic. A mouse in the house is often hanging out in the attic.
Mice are also very common in crawl spaces. Look for droppings on the vapor barrier and other areas. Sometimes you can find mice nests in the insulation in the crawl space. You may not have a mouse in the house, but they are very common in the crawl space.
The best way to exterminate mice is through the use of bait boxes and snap traps. You can also purchase throw bags with mouse bait. Place these along the walls in the crawl space and the garage. In stand-up attics, I like to place the snap traps along the edge of the floor. Make sure you do not place bait out in the open where other pets and animals can get to it. The bait needs to be in a protected box or bag so that pets and children can’t get to it. If you want to get rid of a mouse in the house, you should use bait first.
The White House
The White House, located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is without doubt the most famous house in the world. This Georgian style house is the focal point of many political issues, however, my interest in the house is from the standpoint of Art. I will address only the central block of the house in this article.
The two-story mansion is the residence of the President of the United States and his or her family. This splendid home is difficult to address because it is so famous and is the focus of so many images. So please try to think of the house as a work of art rather than the center of political attention. Looking at the White House immediately we see that it is simple in design and not at all as lavish like many other mansions in the country are, e.g. The Breakers in New Port, Biltmore House in Asheville, and Hearst Castle in San Simeon.
The central block of the building is rectangular in shape and is wider than it is long, the main entry faces north with a grand portico supported by two-story tall white Grecian pillars. The driveway is ample in servicing residential traffic needs. The back side of the house faces the south and is the garden entrance. The difference of the facade is that the center of the house is curved with a balcony around the curve. Many people wrongly think that the Oval Office is located here on the second floor when in fact it is located on the ground floor in the corner of the west wing a good distance from the central block of the house (though connected by internal corridors).
Both sides of the home have extensive gardens and each has a large fountain with sprays at the center. The fountain on the front lawn is usually decorated with ornamental flowers in the patriotic colors of red, white, and blue. When looking at the windows of the house you will note that there is a staggered pattern of a curves that angel above each window. There are four windows across on each side and the second floor windows are aligned with those directly below. The upper floor windows are smaller and are not as embellished with as much details as their counter parts below.
With regard to proportion the garden face is far superior to the main entry. The portico proportions do not match the scale of the house and it is too tall, whereas the proportions on the garden face are splendid needing no adjustments.
Stephen F. Condren – Artist
The White House
“I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this House, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof”.
—John Adams
The White House was built between 1792 and 1800 based on Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s plan for a federal city; the plan was chosen in a competition among nine other proposals. It is said that George Washington was not pleased with the primary plan and found it was too small and simple and not suitable for the nation’s president, so the White House was enlarged by thirty percent. James Hoban, an Irish architecture, influenced by a palace in Dublin in designed the White House. The construction began in October 13, 1792 by black slaves as well as free workers most of them were Irish and Italian immigrants. The initial construction took eight years and the White House was ready to use in 1800 and was occupied by John Adams.
The building was referred to as the “President’s Palace” or “Presidential Mansion”, but around 1811 it was called the white House by public because the building was painted in white. In 1814 during the war between American and British the White house was burned by British Troops; only the exterior walls remained and they needed reconstruction. British troops also looted the precious objects of the White House which were never returned or recovered except for a painting of George Washington and a jewelry box which was given back to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939. By the time of the Civil War, the white House was fully established and over crowded. Later it was enlarged and extended which included a National Wing on the east and a west wing which itself included the Oval Office.
In 1948 the house was in a bad condition due to poor maintenance and construction and it was declared that there is an imminent danger of collapse. So the reconstruction and modification was carried out by the command of President Truman which led to adding more new places for workrooms, storage and a bomb shelter. Later Jacqueline Kennedy directed a very extensive redecoration of the house and collected new artifacts for the home including antiques and paintings; other luxuries of the house were added by wealthy donors. Different periods of the republic and world history were selected as theme for each room such as Green Room, Blue Room, yellow oval Room, Treaty Room…. .Since President Kennedy, every presidential family had changed the house according to their taste. But every change has to be approved by the Committee for the preservation of the White House in order to keep the unity and integrity of the house.