Mice, part 2
Saturday, January 6th, 2007 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joyfinderhero---
Maybe I mentioned that, after the Great Mouse Invasion, we had cleaned about 3/4 of Orion's space -- including all the 'human-habitable' space -- but had left for later some lockers and storage compartments.
Once we moved aboard, we got quickly involved in projects on Second Summit, and neglected to finish the post-mouse cleanup.
Thursday morning about 9 am it suddenly became a higher priority again.
I got up early and went off to yoga class. When Dear Husband got up, the first thing he noticed was a wet cabin floor underfoot. Quick examination disclosed a completely full bilge. Hmm. Come to think of it, we hadn't happen to notice any bilge-pump output (which sounds like the boat is pissing over the side, if you want the truth). Neither of us had thought much about it, since it's been so hot this week that we've had air-conditioning running most of the time and wouldn't have heard it anyway. But now it quickly became obvious that the bilge pump wasn't doing its job.
He ran an electrical jumper and was able to make the pump run ... and some water would leave the bilge area. But as soon as the pump shut off, the water came trickling back. How odd.
After taking apart the cockpit locker and tracing two white hoses which were not the bilge-pump output (one is the vent for the toilet, and the other one is still a mystery), we took apart the under-sink locker in the lavatory. Surprise, two more white hoses. So, okay, he starts the pump while I watch, one hand on each hose -- nothing. Water trickles back. No sign of water in the hoses I'm looking at. So where does the hose go when it disappears out of sight?
We take up the floor of the under-sink locker.
Oh.
Did I mention that the mice eat plastic?
There's a hole in one hose, about four inches long (in a two-inch-diameter hose, mind) below the floor. This time when we run the bilge pump we see what happens -- a fountain rises a couple of inches out of the hole and spills into the under-floor space, where it puddles behind a water-supply tube. Then it trickles slowly down the wall of the cabinet and into the bilge again. Mystery solved.
We replaced two feet of hose, making all the couplings tight, and test again. Splash! Turns out there are two pin-holes -- just the spacing of mouse teeth -- high up on the hose, in an area fairly difficult to work in, just past the junction of the new hose we've added.
Back to the store. After taking out the new hose and replacing a longer run (from below the floor all the way to the outlet on the side of the hull), we test again -- success!
Now to the question of 'why wasn't the bilge pump running continuously'? Turns out they'd chewed a couple of wires, too. We're very fortunate nothing shorted.
Tomorrow we need to test the depth-sounder, since one of the chewed wires runs to it.
In the meantime, it took the better part of two days to work out what was wrong, trace everything, fish new wire through the tiny utility chase ... This really ups the ante on mice invasion, too; everything we'd discovered before was 'annoyance' and 'mess' and 'loss.' This was 'danger' -- something I'm really not prepared to put up with. Also, since one can never get to see every inch of wire or piping on the boat, we now have to recognize that there could be hidden damage that could become a problem at any time. Not a situation to my liking, but it does bring up one of the really excellent reasons to go cruising with buddies in a neighboring boat. Which we plan to do later in the month.
I keep thinking this boat needs a cat. Then I remember that the mice were only here when we weren't, and I wouldn't ask a cat to live here by herself. (and she wouldn't do it, anyway).
I notice, by the way, that I now have a desire to learn how to create icons. If I knew how already, you'd be looking at an icon of an enraged white boat gnashing its shark-teeth over a cowering mouse, or something like that.
@#$
Maybe I mentioned that, after the Great Mouse Invasion, we had cleaned about 3/4 of Orion's space -- including all the 'human-habitable' space -- but had left for later some lockers and storage compartments.
Once we moved aboard, we got quickly involved in projects on Second Summit, and neglected to finish the post-mouse cleanup.
Thursday morning about 9 am it suddenly became a higher priority again.
I got up early and went off to yoga class. When Dear Husband got up, the first thing he noticed was a wet cabin floor underfoot. Quick examination disclosed a completely full bilge. Hmm. Come to think of it, we hadn't happen to notice any bilge-pump output (which sounds like the boat is pissing over the side, if you want the truth). Neither of us had thought much about it, since it's been so hot this week that we've had air-conditioning running most of the time and wouldn't have heard it anyway. But now it quickly became obvious that the bilge pump wasn't doing its job.
He ran an electrical jumper and was able to make the pump run ... and some water would leave the bilge area. But as soon as the pump shut off, the water came trickling back. How odd.
After taking apart the cockpit locker and tracing two white hoses which were not the bilge-pump output (one is the vent for the toilet, and the other one is still a mystery), we took apart the under-sink locker in the lavatory. Surprise, two more white hoses. So, okay, he starts the pump while I watch, one hand on each hose -- nothing. Water trickles back. No sign of water in the hoses I'm looking at. So where does the hose go when it disappears out of sight?
We take up the floor of the under-sink locker.
Oh.
Did I mention that the mice eat plastic?
There's a hole in one hose, about four inches long (in a two-inch-diameter hose, mind) below the floor. This time when we run the bilge pump we see what happens -- a fountain rises a couple of inches out of the hole and spills into the under-floor space, where it puddles behind a water-supply tube. Then it trickles slowly down the wall of the cabinet and into the bilge again. Mystery solved.
We replaced two feet of hose, making all the couplings tight, and test again. Splash! Turns out there are two pin-holes -- just the spacing of mouse teeth -- high up on the hose, in an area fairly difficult to work in, just past the junction of the new hose we've added.
Back to the store. After taking out the new hose and replacing a longer run (from below the floor all the way to the outlet on the side of the hull), we test again -- success!
Now to the question of 'why wasn't the bilge pump running continuously'? Turns out they'd chewed a couple of wires, too. We're very fortunate nothing shorted.
Tomorrow we need to test the depth-sounder, since one of the chewed wires runs to it.
In the meantime, it took the better part of two days to work out what was wrong, trace everything, fish new wire through the tiny utility chase ... This really ups the ante on mice invasion, too; everything we'd discovered before was 'annoyance' and 'mess' and 'loss.' This was 'danger' -- something I'm really not prepared to put up with. Also, since one can never get to see every inch of wire or piping on the boat, we now have to recognize that there could be hidden damage that could become a problem at any time. Not a situation to my liking, but it does bring up one of the really excellent reasons to go cruising with buddies in a neighboring boat. Which we plan to do later in the month.
I keep thinking this boat needs a cat. Then I remember that the mice were only here when we weren't, and I wouldn't ask a cat to live here by herself. (and she wouldn't do it, anyway).
I notice, by the way, that I now have a desire to learn how to create icons. If I knew how already, you'd be looking at an icon of an enraged white boat gnashing its shark-teeth over a cowering mouse, or something like that.
@#$
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(no subject)
Date: Sunday, January 7th, 2007 05:35 am (UTC)!
(no subject)
Date: Friday, January 12th, 2007 03:47 pm (UTC)A boating friend tells me she leaves whole cloves all over the boat when they go away for the off-season. Says mice don't like them, so they don't stay. We'll be trying that in the spring.
(no subject)
Date: Monday, January 8th, 2007 01:40 pm (UTC)Hey, I miss you....
Swan
(no subject)
Date: Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 03:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Friday, January 12th, 2007 03:50 pm (UTC)At mid-tide, when the deck is level with the finger pier, and with any Northerly component in the wind pushing the boat against the dock ... they can just walk aboard direct from shore.
Looks like the Big Secret Trick is to leave NOTHING aromatically interesting aboard. And we're going to try the 'whole cloves all over the boat' that a boating friend recommended. Also we'll be leaving De-Con in some of the under-floor compartments where they nested before.
(sigh)