The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

First Aid For The Ailing Houses

In closing a house for a season, such as a summer house for the winter, all cracks, openings, and other possible entrances should be covered or filled with sheet metal or cement. An accessible chimney top should be capped with a good box made to fit and wired on; this will have the further advantage of keeping out rain.

Squirrels and chipmunks are likely to gnaw their way through a roof or other part. As a further means of keeping an empty house free from them, several pounds of moth balls should be scattered in all parts: on beds, in closets, and over the floors of all rooms. The animals dislike the odor and will not stay where it is present.

MOLES

Moles are most effectively controlled by trapping, the trap being set astraddle of the runway and tripped by the pressure of the mole against the trigger. The runways should be studied to learn the branch that seems to be most commonly used; a stretch can usually be located as a main highway, and the trap set at that point. Moles are most likely to be active in earth that is moist and rich. A crowbar or other heavy rod can be dropped on a runway when disturbance of the earth shows that a mole is passing. You still have to be a pretty good shot, however!

A few moth balls, or beans of the castor oil plant, placed in runways at intervals of 5 to 6 feet, will deter moles from passing. An ounce or so of carbon disulphide injected into a runway with a long-spout oil can will also be effective; care must be taken in its use because of its inflammability.

WORMS

To destroy worms in a lawn, dissolve 1/2 ounce of corrosive ublimate (bichloride of mercury) in 12 gallons of water and sprinkle on the lawn after a shower or a wetting down with the hose; follow by spraying with a hose to carry the solution into the ground. The worms will at once come to the surface and should be disposed of to prevent the poisoning of birds that might be attracted. Since corrosive sublimate is a deadly poison, every precaution should be taken in han- dling it; if used with a watering can, this should be thoroughly rinsed, for the metal will be attacked.

SNAKES

Because of their great value in the destruction of rodent and other animal and insect pests, snakes of the nonpoisonous varieties should not be killed. Being timid, they can be driven away from around a house by noise and threshing at underbrush with a stick; if the disturbance is repeated, they will not return.