Historic 'mouse house' laboratory coming down

The old brick house at Themis and Frederick streets, like other 1890-vintage houses, has its place in local history. It was a learning lab for killing rodents.

Cape-Kil Pest Control Co. owns the house, said Cape-Kil owner Lizbe Knote. The house is too dilapidated to repair, she said, so she is taking it down to make better use for the property.

The house was first built in 1891 by Knote's grandfather, Jacob Dietrich, who emigrated from Germany in 1854. It has been handed down through the family, but holds no particular fond memories for its present owner.

"It was a rental house," Knote said. "It's always been rental property. It was used as a business building for a number of years, but I don't think anybody has lived in it since 1968."

What the house lacks in sentiment and charm it makes up for in intrigue.

Between 1973 and 1984, Knote's father, Charles Knote, who founded Cape-Kil in 1949, used the building as a lab where he experimented with caged wild mice and rats to find out how he could best exterminate them.

"He figured out what type of food they like to eat," she said.

That knowledge led to the development of the Magic Box, which Cape-Kil installs outside buildings to keep rodents from coming inside. The Magic Box is outfitted with some tempting, mouse-pleasing bait, which lures them inside the box, then kills them with a toxic poison.

On one floor of the house, Knote said, her father built pens with galvanized steel walls five feet high, so the mice couldn't climb out. He kept rats in cages in the basement. He fed them and recorded the types of food that are most likely to lure them into a trap.

Despite traditional lore, cheese isn't their favorite food, she said. Mice like peanut butter better than cheese, but there's one food they like more than peanut butter and she's keeping that to herself. It's a company secret.

Knote, who took over the business after her father died, now keeps the business going with eight employees. She has a degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University and has taken continuing education courses in entomology from Purdue for the past 22 years. Her education, experience and her father's efforts in finding out what pleases rodents' palates is more than just a business venture to sell Magic Boxes, she said.

"It's an important issue today," she said. "Rodent urine allergy causes asthma. Mice are cute to look at but they're nasty animals."

Tests she has participated in have shown, she said, that when rodents are eliminated, children are healthy and those who have asthma get better.

Knote said the Magic Boxes are available only through Cape-Kil, but she does plan to market them nationally, possibly as a kit through hardware stores.

For those who prefer their history to be more sentimental, Knote said her grandfather, Albert Rueseler, is the first motorist who drove across the old Mississippi River bridge when it opened. He owned a Chevrolet dealership in Cape Girardeau.

The mice and rats have long since been humanely disposed of, and now the property will be cleared to make way for a new commercial building. Knote said she hasn't decided exactly what she will build in its place, but chances are good it won't have any mice or rats.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160