There’s a Mouse in My House!
I’ve mentioned a funny noise in my walls a few times in the last few months, and this morning I met the furry noisemaker.
I was sitting in the kitchen, quietly eating my breakfast (ratatouille with purple haze chevre), when I saw a movement on the edge of my visual field. I turned and saw a little grey blur skittering across the linoleum from the laundry room to the stove. It was startling, to say the least. But from the way his back end was struggling to stay in line with his front end, I think he was more scared than I was.
A couple of minutes later, I turned to get up, and the poor little thing was again tumbling tail over head to get from the stove to the dishwasher. (It’s open under both appliances, so it’s accessible … to the mop and, apparently, to mice.)
So I put out the D-con boxes near the stove, dryer, and dishwasher, and toddled off to work. I hate to poison the poor, wee mousie, but he can’t live in my house. And I so do not do traps. … Yet.
I did warn the boys to stay away from those boxes, and told them that they were not to offer that mouse a cookie.
***** LATE-BREAKING UPDATE *****
That mouse done done it now! I was putting away some things that I bought yesterday and hadn’t unpacked from the shopping bags. I didn’t know, yesterday, that I had a little mouse marauding about the house. And I completely forgot that I had put my little indulgence of three Godiva dark chocolate truffles into one of the shopping bags with the books and pajamas I bought at the mall.
So I was unpacking the bags, and I found the Godiva bag. “Oh, yummy!” sez I. “A TREAT!” And then I lifted the bag out of the other shopping bag, and there was a two inch hole chewed in the side of it! And through the hole, I could see a neatly incised one-inch round chewed out of one of my truffles!!
That mouse done messed with my chocolate. My expensive, luxurious, special-treat chocolate. That mouse is gonna DIE!
2 Comments
I have used havahart live traps but if you forget to check them the mouse can starve to death. I have caught mice under cans and slid a paper under the can, taped it up, and released them outdoors.
We’ve been lucky in the sense that Michael has a strong hunting instinct. Mice don’t stand a chance in this house, with his claws. (Back when I had four cats, Michael led the whole lot of them, hunting a bird successfully. His three feline sisters couldn’t have cared less about the whole dustup.)