Gadgetory

so I run a YouTube channel called jerry-rigged everything most people assume that my name is Jerry but it's not it's Zach Jerry my grandpa built this cabin right here and this cabin right here has a 20 year old mouse problem not that the mouse is 20 years old but the mice have been there for 20 years Jerry was really good at Jerry rigging things and he didn't always use the most kosher construction practices so this cabin has a lot of reclaimed wood in it and the mouse problem could be relatively small but it's probably going to be pretty big that mice have been in there for a very long time and they're very comfortable but this week we set it aside and we are going to vanquish this mouse problem so if you're squeamish about dead animals or dirty places this probably won't be the video that you want to watch I hope we're successful because this cabin is pretty awesome I say we are glad we work a Sammy a cabana we look back right now we just removed the toilet we have some holes here in the corner where the mice have been getting in and then right here you can see like a bunch of dirt and grass and stuff where they've been coming through the drywall check out the toilet stuck in the shower then on this side we have some more holes in the wall where the mice have been getting in so we have to rip out this wall and see what the damage is inside of there as well once you started wearing our proper safety gear we're going to lift out the carpet around this bottom area so as I'm lifting out the carpet we got the dead remains of the mouse right here just died between the cement and the foam padding probably get out of the hole or something we get Mouse fur and mouse gets all up inside of this cabinet and then you got Mouse poop everywhere else all right we're taking out the wall behind the toilet and this is what we found right here this cute little guy with its last moments if you follow right here to this pipe we have a whole nest coming up where the price comes into the house because it doesn't look like there's anything every time that just ready here now we know cut this piece out by the shower here so there's impede installation all the way through here they're just tearing it out there's no insulation just let's be insulation right yeah they hate it yeah and you can tell they're coming in back there is this the outside wall yeah we've got plants growing up in here so what we're thinking right now so this is the shower we're thinking they're coming up through the drain right here and then going into this part of the wall and eating away the insulation we also went up here to the top side of the shower and right here you can see there's mouse crap everywhere and we can see they're going up into the ceiling a little bit probably through that little hole right there because the drywall little bit pretty tight up against those those boards if that holds the perfect size for a mouse I think we'll find out after we get the shower out of here top part kid so we got the shower out and we found out where all the mice are getting in there right down here that foundation is just pretty much gone so the reason up from the drain or most likely they're coming in from the outside over there and they're making their little homes in here looks like they've eaten out all of the insulation over here on this side all the way up they've eaten the insulation here and are going up into the ceiling see all those little black dots those are not supposed to be there so yeah you bet we look a semi-active bad we look tell me how to do it and I do feeling my ambition like a filling up a pool ain't my choice but it's up to me to choose him around my goals like a working mama tools on the same pace like yes as a mouse Hotel Mouse go in because there's bait inside so they go in through this hole and then get stuck inside of the hotel we've had a little mouse problem over the last couple years we can see the problem is that there's an actual literal gap in the framing where you can see outside that's where all the my Sega dad will probably need steel wool for that Oh for mouth wire no floor we got the leak up in the ceiling I got it worries not couldn't take me on my ropes best foot for liquidation with a broom we gonna stay grind until we all make a move are you gonna find a baby my way are we gonna ground Oh we gonna give it time for never going to either black or black but not brick are you gonna find a babe in my way I'll be gonna kinda I'll be go go give it topic always we've made quite a bit of progress we have the wall ripped out on this far side to see where the mice are coming in and it's basically just one whole way out there in the corner and I'll show you the outside of the house in just a second but up here we can see where the water is coming in so we have for the chimney there's like four inches above that metal box where the water is coming in and then it's running down that left joist all the way down and that's where you saw the big water mark over the drywall right here so pulling off the drywall was difficult we didn't know what direction they were going to run but patching it should be relatively easy once we get a joist or a stud in a straight line and then we can just put the drywall into place so now we'll assess the damages and see what we want to do with it I say we have bad we lack a semi-active and we work we were he look I say we and God we were so the reason we're wearing these masks is because of one the mouse poop but to this fiberglass insulation right there this paint stuff isn't good to breathe in and there's also a bunch of mold and stuff from the water damage in the other room so we're making sure we're not breathing in any harmful chemicals you want to wear it gloves as well because the pink stuff the fiberglass you get into your skin and it's really irritating so we've cleaned out the drywall and insulation from behind the shower and it looks like the biggest mouse problem was right here in the concrete so when my grandpa built this from day one they decided to add another drain to it and so this drain this hole in the floor it's been here since day number one and you can see it out in that far corner there is even daylight coming through that hole so the mice have had an open passageway this whole time so we're going to do it now we're going to clean out all the dirt from right here level it out and then stick new concrete and fill this hole up only we never loose cuz the only thing we ever shared be the truth be the fire till it's burning down the roof focused on your heart cuz the fields be the proof pigs my soul lighting not like a fuse always down to share never that's our food sugar to the wheel like a despot cruel ahead in the world baby that's our school my way are we gonna grind Holly we go give it up and never go away so they need a black lab this part basically I'm just smoothing it out and shaking a little bit to get it all up inside the cracks and to get the bigger rocks down to the bottom now give us a smooth surface on top when we finally get this other layer on top click at the second bag on here's where we just did a submit part of it so over here in the corner we can see a little hole where the mice have been coming in so lucky for us we're going to put some steel wool around the outside some wire great but mice don't like to eat steel wool for obvious reasons it's a made of metal so we're going to put some silicone caulk all around the inside and then stuff it with steel wool and then put some steel wool around the outside wood as well so the steel wool from the outside is going to do most of the protecting but the steel wool on the inside is going to ensure that nothing else comes through this hole and we'll staple it down as well to make sure that no Hercules mites can slip through all right so we have a steel wool in there and a bunch of silicon caulk that's kind of holding it in place so here on the edge of the house I can see a little bit of a hole right here and on the inside that goes into the cabin so we need to put a bunch of steel wool and stuff in here and caulk that up so this is the inside of the hole we just previously looked at from the outside so I'm going to fill that up with steel wool and silicon caulk and hope for the best all right now I got the whole crack full with steel wool silicon caulk down in there and I can spread it around and put it all over the steel wool the nice thing about silicon is that it helps it once it's all dried it'll help it stay in place and it's not very tasty so the mice won't eat it but these are the same my sweet fiberglass insulation so they might like it I don't even know so here's our precarious ladder situation going up to the roof once I get up there we'll take a look and analyze and see where the water is coming in through the chimney okay so I'm up here now we can see that people have tried to fix this already but it looks like they used some inferior called so when this gets really hot in the summer it shrivels up so you can see right around here this nail on the caulking from below I got this section so while the right here is shriveled up and it's just not working at all anymore so I'm hoping that's the issue I'm gonna pull off all of this dead stuff and then we'll put some new high-temperature rated caulk on top of it but I'm hoping that this sealer the ultimate sealer is going to hold a little bit better it's rated at 300 degrees and that should be enough temperature-wise I don't think this roof will get much hotter than that so now I'm just going to smooth it out and make sure that these joints right here is when the water runs down these channels is going to go right there underneath and then down the chimney so as long as I have done this excessively I shouldn't have any issues and I'll make sure to keep these channels pretty deep let us some thick stuff all right so we have a ridiculous amount of caulk on there right now hopefully that will keep it watertight it's not a professional job but we're just here to jerry-rig the thing that should keep all the snow and water out of there so I just move this wood box away from this wall over here and there's a whole dead bird right up against the wall it was kind of like just disintegrating itself pretty feathers though we should probably use this cabin more often I remember when I was little kid working with my grandpa to make this ladder we would cut out the holes right here and I had no idea what he was making at the time because it just didn't make sense to me when it was laying on the ground but then when we came and installed it here for the loft turned out pretty well a salient we were azalea when we were ready we weren't we here's a new creative mousetrap this one might crawl up the little wooden plank and then on this soda can there are two little X's that you put peanut butter on and so the mice will jump onto the peanut butter and the candle spin and they will fall in and die you can put water in the bottom so that they'll drown or you can just leave them in there and they'll be cut so we're on to the drywall right now this is one of the test walls we cut to make sure there's no mice living in this wall and this side of the house is pretty fine so I went through and I measured this I cut out to this other stud too so there's two points of attachment on either side and then here is the piece of drywall so drywall has like a little bit of a taper on one end so it's like a slightly thicker here and then a little bit less thick here and you want to use this taper whenever possible because it makes the mudding easier which you'll see in just a second cutting drywall is actually extremely easy so I have this knife right here that I'm going to do it the short side and that just cuts through very easily all the way through it's very serrated and on this long side I'm going to use my razor blade to score the paper all along this bottom edge and then just snap it off and it'll cut cleanly you want to score the side that's going to be facing the room because the backside this brown paper is going to tear a little bit so let's give it a shot and then we'll just pop the puzzle piece into the hole that we cut and we'll go from there one thing my grandpa taught me is to use the whole length of the saw blade so when you're cutting through it let the saw do the work instead of you do the work tools so what they make for so since this hole was cut kind of Squam pits in the first place and we're doing a patch job I just scored it one more time to cut it to length and you can just sense it scored the paper will just break off without actually damaging the part that's going to be visible because if you have a bunch of frayed paper it's going to be a lot harder to put the mud on and paint later so now we have the unfinished unpainted drywall in place little gaps like this aren't a big deal and I'll show you why in just a second as we mud it because that's going to be all covered up when you're doing this try to hit as many studs as possible there's a stud here and a stud here and so this is going to be pretty solid so if this was a new house we'd be using the normal drywall tape that just sits over the top of this and is a lot smoother but since this is a patch job we're using this kind of drywall tape basically it sits over the crack and lets the drywall mud seep through into the crack filling the hole and then making it smoother overall this holds the mud in place a little bit better all right so the first coat of mud is on right now it's mostly just filling in all the gaps on the uneven ledge between the one piece and the other piece and so you can still see the tape a little bit but when I go back through and sand these ridges and then put one more coat of mud over the top of it it'll hide the tape completely and then we'll be able to blend it more and we paint the whole wall so we'll let this dry you can see this part right here is drying and when it all turns white we're ready to sand it and put on that second coat I say here's a furry little mouth friend that we have making a little bit up here in the insulation get rid of his body so one of the entry points for the mice is right in between the foundation layer and then the wood right on top of it is a little bit of a gap there so we've taken is we have some wire grate that has 1/4 inch holes in it that mice can't fit through and we've taken some adhesive and there's two of these cement and then we've just angled it into the wood so now that gap is off-limits to the mice so we're three days into it and we think that we have everything figured out and solidified and we come around to the back of the house as we're wrapping that metal grate around it and this is what we find so we have the side of the house over there and we have the highway of my schooling inside of the house that looks like they have a nest right there and it looks like it goes farther over there as well so we realize is that this whole cabin has been made out of reclaimed wood so when my grandpa put this plywood in it already had a hole nibbled out by mice and then the mice here at this cabin made it bigger so he knew that hole was there so we stuck this piece of wood to block it but the mice just went around it same thing with this board down here so that's where we're at instead of ripping out all the interior walls to pull to find the nest and pull out the insulation we're just going to cut a foot out from the bottom of these pieces of plywood because these are the pre mouse nibbled pieces of plywood that my grandpa put down and then we'll take a new piece of plywood put it in its place put the mesh over the top of it and that should be good after we've cleaned it all out from the outside so right now I'm going to cut a piece of insulation for this hold right here it's about a foot 9 inches the trick with insulation is that it has to be fully expanded to do the insulating so you have to get the right dimensions for us this is a 6-inch stud right here and when you install you have to make sure that it's all fluffed out and when you cut it if you step on it and make it flat you can cut it pretty easily all the way through the insulation at one time and the r21 gives it its insulation value how well it is at retaining heat so I'm going to cut it and we will install it I say we have a ground we work I see me acting better we look better we work I said we better be like tell me how to do it and I do feeling my ambition like a filling up a pool eat my choice but it's up to me to choose him around my girls like I'm working with my toes on the same page like the headline knows even Jimmy Fallon couldn't shake me on my ropes best foot forward like we dancing with a groove we don't stay grinding till we all make a move I'm gonna find a baby from my way are we gonna grind our don't play we time for never go away sitting either black clapping I'd bring a baby my way I'll be gonna burn out of a gold ring you don't give it time and ever go away sitting in the back of i-49 I say we I find we work I say we have an a we work we work semi-active and we work kudamon is one of the carpets that we have up in the loft has just like a bunch little games on it so you have like Chinese checkers you have regular checkers you have hopscotch you have all kinds of games tic-tac-toe this is just up there as for all the kids to play with all the grandkids right now it's out here in the Sun hopefully the Sun will kill all of the bacteria and stuff on it and we can keep using it so I'm doing all the taping behind the stove all the tape is up now I'm going to start the mudding process and over here my uncle has this all taped off and drywalled this is from the hole on the other side that we discovered underneath the plywood on the exterior and down this room this is where I have that first wall muttered off so it's just one layer right now we still got to sand it down and refinish it make it a little bit more seamless then here is the bathroom where we did the cement plugged up that hole and this hole this has a bunch of calc and steel wool in it and that should keep anything from coming up and that is our view this is an old 36 caliber Stavanger he was likely used in the silver war and it was found in a privy behind a bar so is day number three a pretty good day we finished a lot of the drywall and the plugging of the house we sealed the bottom of it with that steel mesh the worst part of the day is when we found the big holes in the back but it turned out not to be a big of his deal as we thought it was yeah we still had to seal him but the holes were already there from the wood that my grandpa brought back from his car wash so he reclaimed the wood and reused it so the holes were already there the nice just made them a little bit bigger but they didn't like explore into the house they just used that area in between in between the walls so it wasn't too bad we took out the plywood put the new plywood in and then put a lot of the wire mesh over the top of that so we're pretty confident that they're not going to get in hopefully we only have one more day of this all we have to do is finish the second coat of mud kind of expand it out so the seams aren't as noticeable and then we'll paint it probably in the spring once we verify and make sure that there's no mouse problems anymore so cross all your fingers we could only we never Lowe's cuz the only thing we ever say it be the truth you don't see the fire till it's burning down the roof focus on your heart because the fields be the proof so stay for I finally have all the carpet out of all the rooms and we are doing the finishing touches on the drywall so this is some drywall that I just finished you see how the second coat is a lot wider than the first coat so the first coats mostly just to fill it up and then you sand it all down and then you do a wider coat so there's still like a little Ridge right here if you can see it but we'll sand that down before we do the final painting drywall mud is really easy to sand before we put everything back together we're going to make sure that the mice are completely sealed out so we're going to leave everything for the fall in the winter because that's usually when the mice come in and then next spring if there's only like one or two mice we'll paint everything and make it all like a nice little cabin again but if there's 100 - or 200 - then we will assess other options my cousin's mowing the lawn he's gonna be out there a while so we're pretty much done with the cabin this is the middle of day four so we pretty much worked four days on it day three we had some time members come out and help out with the construction process and that helped out a ton couldn't done it without them but I think Jerry would be proud of what we've done you know a couple things are jerry-rigged but that's how he would like it so we'll wait around till next spring and see how bad the mouse problem is then hopefully only one or two get inside I mean we're in the middle of nowhere so we can't expect the impossible thanks so much for joining us with this project it's a little bit different than what we normally do on this channel but I had a lot of fun and I think Jared be proud of what we've accomplished Topsy around I say we have and we work a Sammy AK man we work say we I bet we like a semi I bad we work tell me how to do it and I do feeling my ambition like a filling up a pool