David Curtis is holding a black light and following the tiny glowing footprints of maraudering field mice.
“It’s CSI for field mice,â€? he said recently of his new mouse tracking system, RodoTrak. It offers what he calls a baited box with a car-wash effect dousing mice with florescent powder.As the warm temperatures dip and frost rises, a lot of mice and other small creatures are headed indoors where everything is warm. “We get the calls, rodents in house, droppings in the drawers, noises in the walls. We get a lot of noises in the wall… That’s kind of how this started,â€? he said.
A neighbor, Henry Emanuel asked if there was a way to keep the mice out rather than killing them inside his house. “He said that maybe we could track them and see how they are getting in.”
Emanuel is in the carpet business and uses fluorescent material for color enhancement. “I have a fluorescent material — maybe we can see how they are coming in,� he told Curtis. “His question was how we could get it on the mice. I had to build some kind of encapsulating trap so the rodents would actually treat themselves,� he said.
The result is patent pending — a tunnel-like box is baited and filled with synthetic fibers bearing the fluorescent material.
“It coats their fur as well as their feet. Once they leave, we can track where they are getting in and out. The trails tell you everything you want to know about how these mice are using the structure…,â€? he said. The trails are revealed using a hand-held black light.
Photo by Redding Pilot.
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