The first frost has hit at the farmette. The chickens were all huddled in their nesting box refusing to step foot outside and pretty much everything in the garden is dead except for the greens which I covered.
As the weather gets colder I am realizing that the mice get bolder. I have found evidence of the little rodents under my sink but I have so far chosen to be in denial about the fact that they could actually get into the house. We have two cats so I am hopeful that the mice won't dare venture into the enemy territory, but Big Kitty prefers to kill our neighbor's mice and bring the corpses back to us and itty bitty kitty is not much bigger than a mouse herself.
Please don't think I am some sort of girly girl. I can use power tools and have been known to tell a good fart joke at the dinner table, but I hate mice. Actually I hate: mice, rats and snakes.
My criteria for hatred is if it surprises you by running or slithering out of nowhere and/or if the babies are not cute but merely smaller versions of the adults, then I hate it. Have you ever seen a cute snake?
You may argue that a baby mouse is cute. No it isn't. It is just smaller. The fact that the young of these three species are not cute is just their way of saying, "Fuck you. I don't have to rely on being cute for my survival because I can scare the shit out of you."
"Well," you may say, "A lion could rip your head off and their young are ridiculously cute."
This is true, but you are probably going to see that lion coming at you before you step on it and I love the movie, "Born Free."
"What about Ratatouille?" you ask.
I hated that movie. The whole time I was just thinking how gross it was that there was a rat in the kitchen.
When we lived in the city there were always rodents lurking in the shadows. Rats are the ones that really send me round the bend. There was a rumor going around a few years ago that rats were getting into apartments through the plumbing in our midtown neighborhood and jumping out of toilets at unsuspecting bare bottoms. Come to think of it, this may be just the rumor I need to spread about our guest bathroom so children stop pooping in the pee only toilet.
One morning back then I was nursing baby Scrappy Doo in the bedroom when James Dean came in.
"I just saw Mickey Mouse in the kitchen."
My heart starts racing knowing he wasn't watching the Disney Channel. "How big was it?"
He uses his hands to show me that Mickey Mouse is the size of a small dog.
I leap out of the bed, tug James Dean into the room, run into the other room to get Prince and barricade all of us in the bedroom. I call the husband at work to tell him.
"What do you want me to do?" he asks.
"Um, come home and kill it"
"I can't. I am in a meeting."
I was horrified. This was a matter of life and death and he wasn't going to come home? I got everyone dressed and ran out of the apartment.
It seems James Dean exaggerated a bit and the giant rat was actually a little mouse, which we caught in a trap. I was still creeped out though and a few days later we had Big Kitty.
When we bought the farmette, Big Kitty was in heaven. The lazy indoor cat suddenly turned into a fierce warrior. There were dead mouse offerings waiting for us each morning at both the back and front doors. I told myself it was OK because country mice were not as gross as city mice and they were outside not in my house.
That seems to have changed after our kitchen renovation. There appears to be a hole under the sink that leads down into the basement. My first thought was poison, but with the dog, cats, and chickens, I couldn't risk anyone snacking on a poisonous mouse carcass. The decapitation traps were out for the same reason, plus I would not want to clean up that mess. Glue traps were the way to go.
I laid out five traps the first night; two under the sink, two between the stove and counter and one on the counter. The next morning they were all gone.
The husband was back in the city and I was envisioning a scenario similar to the time he set the Have A Heart Trap on a Sunday and left for the city the next morning before I woke up to find the meanest mama groundhog spitting and hurling her body at the sides of the trap in an attempt to escape. We had caught two of her babies before this and relocated them a few miles down the road. The little ones were yes cute, and also really mellow. They had no problem with the relocation. Mama was another story.
I know, a mouse is probably not as dangerous as a large pissed off groundhog, but the thought of one of them chewing its little leg off and hobbling around my kitchen in the middle of the night was enough to make it hard to sleep.
The next night I opened up the doors under the sink to lay out some new traps. Itty bitty kitty and the dog were very interested and I knew one of the mice must still be stuck to a glue trap out of sight. Itty Bitty climbed in the hole and disappeared. Pepper tried to shove his big head in there as well but jumped back as the kitten shot up stuck to a glue trap along with a little mouse. My first reaction was to scream but I didn't want to wake the kids. I grabbed a towel and threw it over the trap, pulled Itty Bitty's paw off, opened the back door and threw towel, mouse and trap out onto the deck. I was so proud of my little girl and myself.
I am slowly coming to terms with my fear of ugly animals. When I see a snake in the yard I no longer jump up and down and scream, "Kill it! Kill it! Kill it" as I push the husband in the snake's direction. I can now pick up an earthworm WITHOUT gardening gloves, and I can dispose of a mouse. All that said, I won't deny being ecstatic that the husband just fixed the hole under the sink.
Now here is a little video of two animals that fit my definition of cute:
Your timing is perfect. I, too, have had a mouse in my cellar. It is only the 2nd time in all the years we've lived here and I am scared to death of them. After cleaning up the droppings on top of my freezer (yuck) for several days, I finally got my husband to set a trap. Of course when I went downstairs to do laundry this morning, I had to look (from afar) and sure enough, there was a mouse in it. He wanted to know if it was still alive...like I got that close! It is gone now (thanks, hubs) and I hope it is another 20 years until we have another. The garage though is another story but somehow it doesn't creep me out as much as the house. Guess I don't have to think about them crawling over me while I sleep....
ReplyDeleteJoanne
I just have to share my worst mouse-phobic experience. When we lived in the house down the road from our current home -about 20 years ago - we found "evidence" of a mouse invasion in our kitchen. I hate mice with a passion. We decided that we needed to solve our problem and we went low-tech with an old fashion spring-loaded trap baited with peanut butter.
ReplyDeleteWe set our traps and waited. The next evening when we checked the traps, one was missing. We thought that the mouse had taken the trap to its lair. Later, as we were sitting in the living room watching TV, we heard a "clang, clang, clang, clang" coming from under my chair. I looked under the chair and there was the mouse with its tail caught in the trap and the trap caught on the chair. Needless to say, screaming was involved!! What to do?? Finally, I got the snow shovel from outside, Cathryn lifted the chair and I quickly scooped the mouse and trap on to the snow shovel and ran for the door, flinging the trap and mouse into the yard and slamming door shut!
I did not look for that trap again nor did I ever use those cheap, old-fashioned spring-loaded traps again! The hidden from sight, glue traps were my weapon of choice after that... Moving was the best solution!!
They really are terrifying. I have no trouble shoveling the dead ones up outside, but live ones are a whole other story.
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