Responsibility

Ethics & Humane Standards

We build siege weapons for use against an adversary that weighs 19 grams. We are aware of how that sounds. It is precisely because the match is so uneven that our standards must be absolute: overwhelming force carries overwhelming responsibility, and a trebuchet in the kitchen is a covenant, not a threat.

Humane Standard HS-7

Every Mousehold system is designed, tested, and certified under Humane Standard HS-7, our binding engineering code. Its seven articles:

1. No harm. No system shall be capable of injuring a rodent when operated as directed. Kinetic platforms fire warning shots or deliver padded capture pods. Nothing else leaves the rail.
2. Dignity in relocation. Capture pods are ventilated, padded, and stocked with a departure ration. Every relocation ends at a pre-surveyed release zone with ground cover and prospects.
3. Honest deterrence. Banners, designators, and moats communicate a true state of affairs: this household is defended. We do not bluff. The mouse can tell.
4. Proportionality. A single sighting does not justify a Full Siege engagement, however satisfying that would be. Our contracting officers are trained to de-escalate the customer.
5. The gate stays honest. Portcullis systems seal breaches on the outbound trip only. No animal is ever sealed in. Green means sealed; it also means empty.
6. Water, never deeper. Moat channels are 11 millimeters deep: an insult to a swimmer, never a danger to one.
7. Right of retreat. Every engagement plan preserves at least one unopposed exit from the structure. Doctrine states it plainly: build your opponent a golden bridge, then a portcullis behind it.

The doctrine of voluntary relocation

Mousehold Dynamics has recorded zero confirmed rodent casualties since our founding in 2009, across 31,406 defended households and 14,203 relocations. Every engagement in our history has ended the same way: the subject, presented with a fortified pantry, a moated flour reserve, banners it can apparently read, and a comfortable pod that keeps appearing in convenient places, elects to live somewhere else.

Critics ask whether a relocation conducted at trebuchet speed is truly voluntary. Our position is that the subject entered the pod on its own four feet, and that the pod was clearly marked.

Systems we will not build

The following categories are prohibited across all Mousehold divisions, for all clients, at any price. We are asked about them at every trade show, and the answer does not change:

• Adhesive-based systems of any kind. A glue board is not a fortification; it is a surrender of principle with a sticky surface.
• Spring-bar kill traps, including artisanal, heritage, or so-called small-batch variants.
• Poisons, baits, and anything the industry calls a rodenticide with a straight face.
• Boiling oil, in any quantity, at any temperature. We know it is period-accurate. The answer is no.
• Autonomous pursuit platforms. A siege waits. A siege does not chase.

Environmental commitments

Counterweights are cast from recycled gym equipment sourced within 40 miles of Arlington. Moat water is dechlorinated. Banner fabric is mill-end stock. Our range recovers and reuses every practice pod, and the practice brie is donated to staff at month's end, per tradition and over the objections of staff.

See the systems these standards produce