So I'm reclining on my sofa in my living room after a long week, having enjoyed a dinner of Indian food, watching the final season of Sex and the City, when I hear an odd noise, distinctly like the tinkle-clink of dishes one hears in restaurants.
I look down at my plate, which I left on the floor until I next felt the urge to get off the sofa, and there, cleaning up the last fragments of rice, is a mouse.
What. the. fuck.
Fortunately, as it's still daylight, and the mouse didn't attack me, I did not scream. I bent down and said, "Um, excuse me."
The mouse looked up at me, blinked, twitched his whiskers and went back to his chicken tikka masala.
"Hey!" I shouted. He ran away and hid under the radiator.
Argh. I don't really mind mice, they're pretty cute. They don't scare me like roaches. But, they leave turds all over everything, they squeak, they get in my oven and make noise, and of course, they eat things. (Once, in my last apartment, I came home from a vacation and opened the cupboard to discover that a mouse had eaten his way through one side of a cereal box and out the other.) And then there's that whole running across the floor when you least expect it thing.
So, I resolved to get some more poison tomorrow. It worked pretty well the last time. I haven't seen a mouse in months.
I go back to watching SATC. Some movement under the TV cart catches my eye. A little tiny nose with whiskers pokes out, sniffing the air. Sigh.
And then another nose appears, right next to it.
Helllooooooo-ooo, this is not Noah's ark, I don't need two of everything. Actually I don't need any of you.
I'm not the greatest housekeeper in the world, I admit that. But I'm not that bad. Check with people who have been here.
There may only be one solution.
Volume 30, page 439.
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8 comments:
I used to live at the A-frame with Kathryn and Sam, and we had a mouse problem. Being vegans they wouldn't kill the mice, so we caught them with those humane traps. Sam would let them go in the barn, and I'd watch as they ran across the property back to the house. Dan and I finally bought a cage... as we caught mice we'd drop them in the cage with some food and wanter... when the cage was pretty full I drove out to a park and dumped it out.
At our house now I still don't like the idea of poisen, only because I'd rather find a live mouse than a dead rotting one under my furniture. If you go with trapping (catch and release or SNAP!) peanut butter with a raisin on top is a great bait to use.
I do have to agree with you though... mice are somehow not nearly as creepy as bugs (ever have an ant problem? I freaked OUT when that happened at our old apartment!)
I actually have a humane trap, but a cat would be more fun, n'est-ce pas?
Stuff coarse steel wool around the pipes coming from the floor to your radiators - that closes one mode of entry.
You might want to invest in some tupperware- close off the food supply. Of course if you're a messy eater, there is no hope for you other than moving to suburban Ohio where I have never seen a roach or mouse in my life.
If it's mess you don't want....a cat might not be the solution, as cats tend to tear the little creatures apart and leave the guts sitting on your kitchen floor. Ick. But they are pretty efficient other than that.
I'd go for the humane trap--except that my cat would probably leave guts faster than I could use a trap. Oh, another thing cats like to do, is to chase them and catch them, chase and catch, until the poor thing is dead. Then the cat still wants to play, and so they toss the mouse into the air. Play! Hey, mouse, play! Come on....
Another thing kitties do, sometimes, when they love you lots and lots and lots, is that after mauling mousie 'round midnight, they'll bring the trophy to you, as you lie peacefully sleeping in bed, and nuzzle all up against your face with their bloody maws to show you just how much they love you. ;-)
Oh, I'm familiar with owning cats. I'm hoping my cat(s) wouldn't so much kill the mice as just scare them off. You know how New York apartment buildings are, total rumor mills. "Hey, have you been in 3C lately? No? Well, don't go, they've got a cat now."
I'm so jealous that you got pix of your mice when all mine left me alone with only memories! Here's the best - my roommate - whom I now call Prince Valiant - swatted a mouse with his bare palm after I herded it (screaming and dancing on my toes) into our dinette. There were so many that year, they would literally defend their turf - or mate - or something - in the middle of the living room floor while we were watching movies. I mean - they must have known that we would never have left the sofa while Hugh Jackman was on screen! Right? Well after my roommate moved out, I switched to sticky traps. It's horrible. It takes 24-36 hours for them to die of exertion and/or thirst. They squeek and shreik while dying. And I have horrible thoughts about specisism and the cruelty of one superior species over the other. As for my (tiny) kitchen, I have only canned food in the cabinets, and I have a hand held pressurized steam cleaner that I use to blast the hell and other ungodliness off every0 surface and out of every cracks and crevice. Betty Bowers would be proud. I LOVE MY F-CKIN STEAM CLEANER!!!
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