So I run a YouTube channel called “Jerry
Rig Everything”. Most people assume that my name is Jerry,
but it’s not. It’s Zack. 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. The mice have been in there for a very long
time and they are 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 you want to watch. I hope we’re successful because this cabin’s
pretty awesome. [Music] I’m in the bathroom 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 a bunch of
dirt and grass and stuff where they’ve been coming through the drywall. Took out the toilet and stuck it in the shower. Then on this side we have some more holes
in the wall where the mice have been getting in. So we’re going to have to rip out this wall
and see what the damage is inside of there as well. Let’s get started. Wearing our proper safety gear. We’re going to lift out the carpet all around
this bottom area. When we were lifting up the carpet we got
the dead remains of a mouse right here. It died between the cement and the front padding,
probably getting out of that hole or something. We got mouse fur and mouse guts all up inside
of this cabinet. And we got mouse poop everywhere else. Alright we’ve taken out the wall behind
the toilet and this is what we found. Right here, this cute little guy lived its
last moments. If we follow right here to this pipe we have
a whole nest. So they’re coming up where the pipe comes
into the house. Cuz it doesn’t look like there’s anything
behind this; just right here. Now we know. Got this piece out by the shower here. So there should be insulation all the way
through here but they’ve just kind of carried it out. There’s no insulation. There’s supposed to be insulation right? (Eric) Yes, and they’ve eaten it. They’ve eaten it all and they’re coming
in back there. (Zack) Is this is outside wall? (Eric) Yes. (Zack) Cuz we’ve got plants growing up in
here. So what we’re thinking right now, so this
is the shower, we’re thinking that they’re coming up through the drain right here and
then going into this part of the wall and eating away the insulation. But we also went up here to the top side of
the shower and right here you can see that there’s mouse crap everywhere and we can
see that they’re going up into the ceiling a little bit…Probably through that little
hole right there, cuz the drywall would have been pretty tight up against those boards. But that hole’s the perfect size for a mouse
I’d think. We’ll find out after we get the shower out
of here. Well, the top part’s good. So we got the shower out and we found out
where all the mice were getting in. They’re right down here. The foundation is pretty much gone. So they’re either coming 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 they’re going up into the ceiling. See all those little black dots? Those are NOT supposed to be there. [Music] So
this is a mouse hotel. The mouse will 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 the last
couple years. We can see the problem is that there is an
actual literal gap in the framing where you can see outside. That’s where all the mice are getting in. So we’ll probably need steel wool for that. (Eric) Uh huh. Or mouse wire. (Zack) Mouse wire. Then we got the leak up in the ceiling we
got to worry about. [Music] So 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 hole way out
there in the corner. I’ll show you the outside of the house in
just a second. But up here we can see where the water’s
coming in. So we have the…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 cuz
we didn’t know what direction they were going to run. But patching it should be relatively easy
once we get 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. [Music] So the reason we’re wearing these masks
is because one, the mouse poop, but two, this fiberglass insulation right here. This pink 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’ll want to wear gloves as well because
the pink stuff, the fiberglass, can get into your skin and it’s really irritating. So we’ve cleaned out the drywall and the
insulation from behind the shower and it looks like the biggest mouse problem is right here
in the concrete. So when my grandpa built this, from day one
they decided to add another drain to it. So this drain, this hole in the floor, has
been in here since day number one. And you can see out in that far corner there’s
even daylight coming through that hole. So the mice have had an open passageway this
whole time. What we’re going to do right now is we’re
going to clean out all the dirt from right here, level it out, and stick new concrete
and fill this hole up. [Music] For this part basically I’m just smoothing
it out and shaking it a little bit to get it up inside the cracks and to get the bigger
rocks down at the bottom. And that will give us a smooth surface on
top when we finally get this other layer on top…get the second bag on. [Music] Here’s where we did the cement 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 grate. But mice don’t like to eat steel wool for
obvious reasons. It’s made of metal. So we’re going to put some silicone caulk
all around the inside and 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 be mostly protecting, but the steel wool on the inside is going to make sure that nothing
else comes through this hole. And we’ll staple it down as well to make
sure that no Hercules mice can slip through. Alright so we have the steel wool in there
and a bunch of silicone caulk that’s kind of holding it in place. So here on the edge of the house you 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 silicone caulk and hope for the best. Alright now we got the whole crack filled
with steel wool. Silicone caulk down in there and I can spread
it around and put it over the steel wool. The nice thing about silicone is that it helps
it, once it’s all dried, it will help it stay in place, and it’s not very tasty. The mice won’t eat it. But these are the same mice who eat 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 I’ll take a look and
analyze and see where the water is coming in through the chimney. Ok 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 caulk. So when this gets really hot in the summer
it shrivels up. So you can see right around here, this nail,
all the caulk has shriveled up and it’s gone. It’s not waterproof anymore. Then we got this section. So all the caulk right here is shriveled up
and it’s just not working at all anymore. So I’m hoping that’s the issue. I’m going to 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 it 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…cuz when the water runs down these channels it’s
going to go right there underneath and then down the chimney. So as long as I’ve done this excessively,
we shouldn’t have any issues. And I’ll make sure to keep these channels
pretty deep. That is some thick stuff. Alright so we have a ridiculous amount of
caulk on there right now. Hopefully that will keep it water tight. 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 moved this wood box away from this
wall over here and there’s a whole dead bird right up against the wall. Just kind of like disintegrated itself. Pretty feathers though. We should probably use this cabin more often. I remember when I was a 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, it turned out pretty well. [Music] So here’s another creative mouse trap. So this one the mice crawl up the little wooden
plank, and then on the soda can there are two little X’s that you put peanut butter
on. So the mice will jump onto the peanut butter
and the can will 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 caught. [Music] So we’re onto the drywall right now. This is one of the test walls we cut to make
sure there are no mice living in this wall. And this side of the house is pretty fine. So I went through and I measured this. And I cut out to this other stud two so there
are two points of attachment on either side. And then here’s a piece of drywall. So drywall has like a little bit of a tapper
on one end. So it’s like slightly thicker here and then
a little bit less thick here. And you’d want to use this tapper 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 with 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 will cut that cleanly. You want to score the side that’s going
to be facing the room because the back side, 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. It’s what they’re made for. So since this hole was cut kind of skiwampus
in the first place when we were doing the patch job, I just scored it one more time
and cut it to length. And you can just, since it’s scored, the
paper will just break off without actually damaging the part that’s going to be visible. Cuz 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 cuz that’s going to be all covered
up. When you’re doing this, try to hit as many
studs as possible. So 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. Alright 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 will hide the tape completely and then we’ll be able to blend it in more
when 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 then put on that second coat. So here’s a furry little mouse friend making
his little bed 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, there’s
a little bit of a gap there. So what we’ve taken is we have some wire
grate that has one fourth inch holes in it that mice can’t fit through. And we’ve taken some adhesive and adhesived
it to the cement and we’ve stapled 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. We have the side of the house over there and
we have the highway of mice going inside of the house. So it looks like a nest right there
and it looks like it goes farther over there as well. Dang. So what we realized 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 he 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 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 hole right here. It’s about a foot and nine 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
it. So this is a 6 inch stud right here. And when you install it 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 R-21 gives it its insulation value;
how well it is at retaining heat. So now I’m going to cut it and we will install
it. [Music] This is one of the carpets that we have up
in the loft. It has like just a bunch of little games on
it. So you have like Chinese checkers, you have
regular checkers, you have hop scotch, you have all kinds of games…tic tac toe. This is just up there 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 dry walled. This is from the hole on the other side that
we discovered underneath the plywood on the exterior. Then down in this room, this is where I have
that first wall mudded off. So it’s just one layer right now. We still got to sand it down and refinish
it and make it look a little bit more seamless. Then in here is the bathroom where we did
the cement. Plugged up that hole and this hole. This has a bunch of caulk and steel wool in
it, and that should keep anything from coming up. And that is our view. This is an old 36 caliber scavenger. It was likely used in the Civil War and was
found in a privy behind a bar. So it’s day number three. Pretty good day. We finished a lot of the dry wall and the
plugging of the house. We sealed the bottom of it with that steel
mesh. The worst part of the day was when we found
the big holes in the back. But it turned out not to be as big of a deal
as we thought it was. Yeah, we still had to seal them, 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 mice just made them a little bit bigger
but they didn’t explore into the house. They just used that area 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 that we have to do is finish the second
coat of mud kind of expanded 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 are no mouse problems anymore. So cross all your fingers. [Music] So it’s day four. We 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 can see how the second coat is a lot wider
than the first coat. So the first coat was mostly just to fill
it up. Then you sand it all down. 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 and the winter because that’s usually when the mice come in. And then next spring, if there are only like
one or two mice, we’ll paint everything and make it all like a nice little cabin again. But if there are a hundred mice, or two hundred
mice, then we will assess other options. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang My cousin’s mowing the lawn…he’s going
to 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 family members come
out and help out with the construction process and that helped out a ton. Couldn’t have done it without them. But I think Jerry will 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 Jerry would be proud of
what we’ve accomplished. Hope to see you around!
