Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Resident Evil


Here is a picture of a nice bluebird.  The bluebird of happiness.  But today, I am NOT happy.  Do you want to know WHY I am not happy?  

I will tell you anyway.

Because the people next door got a stupid divorce and the lady moved out and she took the stupid cats and since we have been back from Cape Cod, we have caught THREE mice in the drawer below my oven and there is at least one more that we know of, and probably even more than that and I am FREAKING OUT.  

Ugh.  

Kev said I would feel better if I blogged about it, but he was wrong.  And that is saying something because he is only wrong 3% of the time.  According to him.  

I don't feel better at all.

I hate mice.  They are dirty and they carry diseases and they poop everywhere and if you aren't careful, they get in your food supply.  And you never know where they are lurking or if they are at any moment going to scurry by and run across your feet which are essentially bare because you are wearing your summertime flip-flop style slippers instead of the heavy duty winter ones that keep your feet warm and safe from being trod upon by wayward rodents.  

Here is the routine:  1.  A trap is set in the drawer below the oven.  2.  A mouse is caught in the trap.  3.  Kev (my hero!) takes the trap down the street to the bike trail and releases the mouse by the creek.  4.  I clean the hell out of the oven drawer.  5.  More poop is eventually discovered and we start all over again with step number one.

I can't go on like this much longer.  And to make matters worse, Kev has THREE work trips coming up and I will be left here to deal with the mice alone.  I can't be expected to do step 3 without a Haz-Mat suit.  Seriously.  And when I told Kev this, he just laughed at me because I am "like a cartoon."  Then he said maybe if I played my Hall and Oates Pandora station it might drive away the mice.  Salt in the wound.

So, that's why I am not happy.  I am so grossed out.  I know these things are to be expected when you live in a 106-year-old house, but this is a problem that needs to be solved because I can't live the rest of my life going through steps 1-5 over and over and over again, and worrying about mice scurrying over my feet.

At least there are no lions.  But all bets are off if something crawls across my feet.  Sigh.

Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean...


UPDATE: DANGIT I just checked the trap and there is a mouse in it.  That's mouse number FOUR.  It will just have to stay in there and wait for Kev to get home.  

When will this nightmare end?  

2 comments:

Larry Feathers said...

That was pretty fun to read.

Gye Greene said...

We had that situation during our recent summer: we had mice **and** bushrats chew through our screens and get in to our house. I could hear them rummaging around the boxes in our "box room".

Nightly poop and destruction in the pantry.

Tried a variety of traps, but none of them worked.

We bought one of those "live traps" (small cages), which worked OK for the bushrats (note: the leftover fish from fish & chips worked best, as bait) -- but the mice were so small that they would squirm their way between the bars of the cage if you left them too long.

So my approach was to leave the pantry door open and sit nearby, typing on my laptop. But first I'd set up a "funnel" of large canned goods and cereal boxes, channelling towards the cage. I laid newspaper over the cage like a tunnel, so that the mouse would think it was a safe hidey-place. And I'd leave a few gaps in the "funnel" of cans that lead to the cage-trap.

When I heard little "rummaging" sounds I would plug the gaps in the "funnel", then step into the pantry and poke around with a stick until I freaked out the mouse enough that it would run out of the pantry, down the channel, and into the cage. Then I'd pick up the cage -- jiggling it constantly so that it couldn't get out between the bars -- and dump it into the (empty!) garbage can outside.

Originally I'd drive them to the woods behind my kids' school, and release them. But then I realized that I was contributing to selective breeding: allowing the boldest and bravest mice to breed. So then (regrettably) I started to euthanize them: I'd pour about a cup of rubbing alcohol into the bottom of the garbage can, and after about five minutes they'd pass out from breathing the fumes, and eventually suffocate.

(TMI?)


Yep -- I got to be the "rodent handler" in my household. It was a little freaky at first, but through sheer repetition I got used to it.


--GG