We have a non-rodent-infested building so far, and we really want to keep it that way. Don’t leave your leftovers in the space. That goes for the pizza that’s been sitting in the fridge for at least a week as well.
Your mom is not here to clean up after you.
As someone who is pretty severely allergic to rodents, please please, cart your food and food containers out of the space. Do not put food garbage in the trash cans and leave it inside overnight. Take all food garbage out to the dumpster when we get one. Sweep up crumbs and food spills. Even crumbs will attract mice or rats and if they cant find human food to consume, they will go for delicious drywall and wiring.
EDIT: THIS INCLUDES RINSING OUT YOUR BEVERAGE CANS BEFORE RECYCLING THEM, JUST GIVE THEM A SWIRL OF WATER BEFORE YOU DUMP, IT’S NOT HARD THANKS <3
http://vanhack.ca/doku.php?id=foodrules
Page made, subject to policy updates
VHS has traditionally been OK with people storing their beer at the space.
In the past overarching policies are voted on at QGMs. This should be made into a proposal by a member for the next QGM? if you feel like it’s more urgent than that, maybe you can convince someone to call an EGM over it.
When you say storing beer, do you mean open or closed containers? In or outside of the fridge?
before we had the big fridge at the old space, we only had the little fridge in the lounge right now.
it would be sometime full of half drank growlers as well as cans of whatever.
i don’t think anyone would be against a policy of “don’t leave opened cans sitting out” but a categorical “don’t store your food or drink” might require more discussion.
I don’t think anyone stores open containers of beer. Growlers in the cold box would be something I could see.
Sealed containers don’t attract vermin. Un-enclosed food does attract vermin. Simple as that.
Also, being in a garbage can does not magically make food not be in the space any more.
I’m not concerned about anything that can be re-sealed tightly to prevent access and… smell leakage? So things like glass tupperware and growlers with caps wouldn’t pose an issue. I’m way more concerned about things like greasy pizza boxes, open / unsealable cans of beer or pop and food garbage like McDonalds bags with all the grease and food smell just placed in the garbage cans indoors. That’s going to be a huge draw.
And yes, I used to live in a 100-year-old house with many extra tenants, so my panic is on high, lol.
Speaking of, came in this afternoon and the whole place reaked of food.
this was sitting on a table not even in a garbage can.Seriously people. Please try to at least pretend you give a shit about our space.
Can someone please move this thread to members-only? Thanks!
An interesting, somewhat related, side note is that rodents like to eat things other than “food”. We have an off-grid cabin in Howe Sound and battling mice is an ongoing issue for us and everyone else in our cottage community. We had pretty much sealed all the mouse entrances and learned the best way to store our various foodstuffs in rodent-proof containers.
We thought we had the problem licked for a couple of years and then, in the spring of 2018, we opened up the cabin to find that the mice had been having a party all winter. There was mouse crap everywhere. We discovered that the roll of TP in the bathroom had been shredded but it wasn’t until we opened the cupboard were we store our candles that we discovered the real food source. The mice had devoured over 300 Ikea tea lights. We had never had this problem before. What we discovered was that Ikea had changed their supplier of tea-lights. The old ones were paraffin was while the latest ones we bought were paraffin/soy wax. The mice apparently enjoyed the paraffin/soy candles to the extent that the only trace of the original candles were the wick bases and the aluminum cans. In exchange, they left us a mountain of mouse poo.
A lot of insulation on electrical wire is soy-based these days. There are lots of stories of people who have experienced thousands of dollars of damage to their newer cars because rodents ate the wiring.
We also learned that the mice like to eat certain type of soap bars. Irish Spring soap isreportedly supposed to repel mice. Someone neglected to tell the mice because, when we tried putting chunks of Irish Spring soap near suspected mouse holes, it was pushed out of the way and partially eaten.
Another thing we learned is that the best mouse trap is still the conventional ‘instant-death’ spring traps that you can get at the dollar store for cheap with a light smear of peanut butter on the trigger.
We now keep all of our soap and candles, regardless of type or source, in large glass jars and store all of our partially used candles before we leave. We keep all of our paper products in plastic storage bins in a, so far, mouse-proof cupboard. We didn’t have much in the way of mouse “evidence” when we opened the cottage this spring.
Hopefully the hackspace will not suffer a mouse or rat infestation. In our experience, once they find a food source, they tell all of their friends and relatives. It becomes a huge problem to resolve and they continue to come back after the food source is removed just to scout around.
Mice and rats will eat literally anything. Especially if you take away an accessible food source and they need to shift to the next best thing. They will eat your soy wiring covering and shred our newly installed drywall. Heck, if you ignore a sprung mouse trap for too long, they will eat the dead mouse.
Aside from cleaning up garbage, be careful of spills on the floor like chips, crumbs and and popcorn. Even a morsel can and will attract pests. If you see food on the floor, sweep it up and get it outside.
that was me, i forgot to pack that out 
Good news! You still can!
I also forgot to pick it up at the end of the day.
mmkay, on it
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