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Small animals dying in the window well of my basement (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/homeimprovement

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I work in a basement office. There is a below-grade egress window, with a 3-4ft ladder and a large plexiglass dome that you can push out of the way.

I noticed a terrible smell when I opened my window the other day, and it was because of a dead mouse that presumably couldn't get out of the recess. On inspection, I found the remains of several more dead rodents there, so this has been a problem in the past too.

Any ideas on how to prevent this? I both feel bad for the dead animals and am disgusted by the smell when they decay. The plexiglass dome has chicken wire for airflow, so I can't necessarily block those off. Maybe there's some method to repell them, or help them escape?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Attach some rope to the chicken wire that the rodents can use to climb out.

[–] givesomefucks 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If it gets enough light/sun that plants grow, put a peppermint plant out there.

Rodents hate the smell.

If nothing grows there. You could spray peppermint every month, or hook up some kind of rope/ladder for them to get out. If you go the "escape route" way tho, they're gonna live in there having babies and you won't be able to open the window or they get into the building.

Might be better to put a finer mesh over the chicken wire.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Hmm, I can't grow peppermint in the recess, but maybe around the dome would work?

Good point about the escape route possibly making things worse. There's plenty of evidence that previous owners have dealt with rodent issues, so I wouldn't want to reintroduce that possibility.

[–] givesomefucks 1 points 4 months ago

Yeah, dome level would do it.

Probably even be enough to have one inside on the windowsill.

Rodents have an insane sense of smell, and they hate peppermint because the smell is so strong. So it would probably be enough to keep them from going in there.