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I have a pretty severe rat infestation in my house. The rats seem to mostly live in my roof and just come down to eat food. I've tried using warfarin based poisons to kill them. I placed them inside the roof through the manhole. The baits get eaten completely, but the rats don't die. The amount of poison I have placed up there has been up to 1kg of 0.105% warfarin. Essentially all of it was gone within a week but the rats were not. It's possible that the rats are warfarin resistant, but there's no other options at the local shops here. I'm thinking of taking a cereal and potassium cyanide and mixing together with honey to bind it and placing that in the roof. I don't have any pets or children. Would this be an effective mixture for erradicating my rats? 112.215.36.172 ( talk) 04:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Do you have any access to sodium azide-based pesticides? In sufficient quantity, the water-dissolved form should kill essentially anything. But given that, there may be restrictions on its use in your area, due to the potential for environmental contamination. If you are legally permitted to use it, simply spraying it on the glued rat should kill it, of course being very careful not to get it on yourself. Someguy1221 ( talk) 06:29, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
This is why we have professionals.-- Shantavira| feed me 11:47, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Let me point out that the OP geolocates to Jakarta, Indonesia. I doubt that many people here are qualified to give advice on getting rid of rats in a place like that, especially not knowing the setting of the house in question. And in any case I certainly wouldn't give advice to anybody who starts talking about using cyanide. Looie496 ( talk) 15:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Cheese with Polonium 210 Count Iblis ( talk) 18:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Using cyanide doesn't seem like such a good idea. The rats will taste just a little bit of the food and notice they become sick. And if one of them dies shortly after having eaten from a new food source, the others might be smart enough to avoid eating from that same food source. That's the reason for using slowly-acting poisons like warfarin. Icek ( talk) 09:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't like all this poison stuff. If you end up killing yourself with it, it looks bad for humanity versus ratkind in the global intelligence ranking. Not to mention that you'll have dead rats in your walls, getting ... juicy. Why not use a good old fashioned rat trap? Or a glue trap - apparently they still work for rats, and it has the added benefit of often providing you the live rat for ... wherever your imagination takes you. Or countless other mechanical options. Wnt ( talk) 18:14, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Combining several of the above solutions with some externally sourced ingenuity, I've decided how I will proceed.
Calcium phosphide and sodium azide were determined to be too difficult to procure. Rat glue was rejected due to my squeamish side not wanting to handle live rats who are angry enough to have literally ripped their own faces off. This suggestion from a previous reference desk question was rejected on the basis of unreasonable cost. Allowing cats and snakes into my roof was considered, but not accepted since the goal is to reduce the number of pests in my house. As a request made under the Freedom of Information Act revealed, attempts to acquire polonium laced cheese resulted in my name appearing on a suspected terrorist watch list. The original idea of cyanide was determined to be so 1940's.
The ideal toxin and route of administration was determined to be remotely actuated direct subcutaneous plumbum injection. In the end, much greater weight was given to the level of satisfaction achieved over actual probability that it will result in my house not having lots of rats in it. The chosen method is as follows:
Thanks for your help everyone.
Borrow a cat. -- Dweller ( talk) 14:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
A few months back I posted this
"I have a titanium mug/cup. After drinking some milk I forgot to rinse it out and it sat and became gross. I decided to add some tincture of iodine along with some water to help sanitize the cup. After adding this in letting it sit for about a minute it changed color and started a foul smell that made my nose sting. Is it possible it reacted with titanium to release some sort of harmful gas or substance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.38.198.61 (talk) 00:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The elemental iodine (I2) is probably reacting with the titanium in the same way it reacts with aluminium. The product of that reaction would be titanium iodide, which is a very soluble salt, but it would also generate heat which volatilises some of the remaining elemental iodine. That stuff's not very nice to breath in. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 00:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
According to the titanium alloy article, titanium is usually alloyed with aluminium anyway. The reaction between iodine and aluminium is very spontaneous and can result in iodine vapor. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 04:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The thing is I didn't see any actual cloud of vapor rise from the cup I just smelled it is that normal for this type of reaction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.38.197.212 (talk) 12:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
If there had been enough vapor for you to see it in the air it would have been at a lethal concentration. Tincture of iodine only contains a few percent of iodine and not all of it is elemental either. I can imagine it would have been enough to smell but not enough to see by several orders of magnitude. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 20:14, 4 March 2012 (UTC)"
I haven't used this cup since then but I liked it a lot and it was expensive so im wondering is it safe to drink out of it?--
64.38.226.89 (
talk)
05:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Where can I find scientific studies on the effect of the supplement glucocamine on tendonitis?
Just to clarify I am not asking for medical advice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.146.124.35 ( talk) 20:43, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Science desk | ||
---|---|---|
< June 28 | << May | June | Jul >> | June 30 > |
Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives |
---|
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages. |
I have a pretty severe rat infestation in my house. The rats seem to mostly live in my roof and just come down to eat food. I've tried using warfarin based poisons to kill them. I placed them inside the roof through the manhole. The baits get eaten completely, but the rats don't die. The amount of poison I have placed up there has been up to 1kg of 0.105% warfarin. Essentially all of it was gone within a week but the rats were not. It's possible that the rats are warfarin resistant, but there's no other options at the local shops here. I'm thinking of taking a cereal and potassium cyanide and mixing together with honey to bind it and placing that in the roof. I don't have any pets or children. Would this be an effective mixture for erradicating my rats? 112.215.36.172 ( talk) 04:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Do you have any access to sodium azide-based pesticides? In sufficient quantity, the water-dissolved form should kill essentially anything. But given that, there may be restrictions on its use in your area, due to the potential for environmental contamination. If you are legally permitted to use it, simply spraying it on the glued rat should kill it, of course being very careful not to get it on yourself. Someguy1221 ( talk) 06:29, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
This is why we have professionals.-- Shantavira| feed me 11:47, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Let me point out that the OP geolocates to Jakarta, Indonesia. I doubt that many people here are qualified to give advice on getting rid of rats in a place like that, especially not knowing the setting of the house in question. And in any case I certainly wouldn't give advice to anybody who starts talking about using cyanide. Looie496 ( talk) 15:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Cheese with Polonium 210 Count Iblis ( talk) 18:15, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Using cyanide doesn't seem like such a good idea. The rats will taste just a little bit of the food and notice they become sick. And if one of them dies shortly after having eaten from a new food source, the others might be smart enough to avoid eating from that same food source. That's the reason for using slowly-acting poisons like warfarin. Icek ( talk) 09:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't like all this poison stuff. If you end up killing yourself with it, it looks bad for humanity versus ratkind in the global intelligence ranking. Not to mention that you'll have dead rats in your walls, getting ... juicy. Why not use a good old fashioned rat trap? Or a glue trap - apparently they still work for rats, and it has the added benefit of often providing you the live rat for ... wherever your imagination takes you. Or countless other mechanical options. Wnt ( talk) 18:14, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Combining several of the above solutions with some externally sourced ingenuity, I've decided how I will proceed.
Calcium phosphide and sodium azide were determined to be too difficult to procure. Rat glue was rejected due to my squeamish side not wanting to handle live rats who are angry enough to have literally ripped their own faces off. This suggestion from a previous reference desk question was rejected on the basis of unreasonable cost. Allowing cats and snakes into my roof was considered, but not accepted since the goal is to reduce the number of pests in my house. As a request made under the Freedom of Information Act revealed, attempts to acquire polonium laced cheese resulted in my name appearing on a suspected terrorist watch list. The original idea of cyanide was determined to be so 1940's.
The ideal toxin and route of administration was determined to be remotely actuated direct subcutaneous plumbum injection. In the end, much greater weight was given to the level of satisfaction achieved over actual probability that it will result in my house not having lots of rats in it. The chosen method is as follows:
Thanks for your help everyone.
Borrow a cat. -- Dweller ( talk) 14:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
A few months back I posted this
"I have a titanium mug/cup. After drinking some milk I forgot to rinse it out and it sat and became gross. I decided to add some tincture of iodine along with some water to help sanitize the cup. After adding this in letting it sit for about a minute it changed color and started a foul smell that made my nose sting. Is it possible it reacted with titanium to release some sort of harmful gas or substance? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.38.198.61 (talk) 00:08, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The elemental iodine (I2) is probably reacting with the titanium in the same way it reacts with aluminium. The product of that reaction would be titanium iodide, which is a very soluble salt, but it would also generate heat which volatilises some of the remaining elemental iodine. That stuff's not very nice to breath in. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 00:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
According to the titanium alloy article, titanium is usually alloyed with aluminium anyway. The reaction between iodine and aluminium is very spontaneous and can result in iodine vapor. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 04:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
The thing is I didn't see any actual cloud of vapor rise from the cup I just smelled it is that normal for this type of reaction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.38.197.212 (talk) 12:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
If there had been enough vapor for you to see it in the air it would have been at a lethal concentration. Tincture of iodine only contains a few percent of iodine and not all of it is elemental either. I can imagine it would have been enough to smell but not enough to see by several orders of magnitude. 203.27.72.5 (talk) 20:14, 4 March 2012 (UTC)"
I haven't used this cup since then but I liked it a lot and it was expensive so im wondering is it safe to drink out of it?--
64.38.226.89 (
talk)
05:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
Where can I find scientific studies on the effect of the supplement glucocamine on tendonitis?
Just to clarify I am not asking for medical advice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.146.124.35 ( talk) 20:43, 29 June 2012 (UTC)