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Poopmice in the grill

June 7, 2006 - -

Our new grill has seen quite a bit of use recently, although last night we discovered that grilling salmon doesn't work too well - it falls apart and is nearly impossible to flip or to lift off the grill without creating a huge mess.

The problem we've come up with recently is with mice. This past weekend, as I was grilling some veggies, I noticed a mouse in our courtyard, which ran away when I came out to check on things. Later, when I grabbed the cover to put back on the grill, a mouse was hiding under there. And last night, I noticed a good bit of mouse droppings on the side-trays. This could be a problem. I don't want the Hanta virus.

So what are our solutions? We can't move the grill indoors - it's hooked to our outdoor gas line, and even moving it into the garage would be a huge undertaking. We'd likely never use it if we had to store it in the garage. I very much doubt we can close the grill off by use of the cover - mice can get into nearly anything. And placing mousetraps or poison is also pretty much out of the question. We're in a pretty wild open area - placing poison would be basically trying to kill all the mice in the local ecosystem. Not an option.

If you've got any advice, I'd love to hear it.

Comments on Poopmice in the grill
 
Comment Wed, June 7 - 11:05 PM by pmd
http://www.thetoombesroom.co.uk/mouse.mov
 
Comment Thu, June 8 - 11:13 PM by Mark
Yeah, go poop on their grill. That's what I would do.
 
Comment Fri, June 9 - 2:40 PM by Brandon
Do those sonic pest control emitter thingies work?

For salmon, you can buy a fish basket which is basically a thinner basket thingy on a handle that allows you to flip the fish in the basket thing without having it fall apart. Or, you could just not eat salmon, which has been my preferred solution for years now.
 
Comment Sun, June 11 - 2:20 PM by Michelle
For Salmon - cedar planks. You can get them at most grocery stores. You soak them for a bit first, put the salmon on it, put it on the grill...voila! They put a nice subltle flavor into the salmon. One simple recipe using the planks is to put on a dijon mustard before grilling. It's funny, I'm not a huge mustard fan, but it doesn't end up with a mustard flavor at all.

We have salmon probably once a week.