Bringing in the Big Guns

I totally lost my mind last night. I was cleaning out a drawer in the kitchen that holds our cooking utensils, since it was overstuffed with one too many spatulas. How we've accrued so many spatulas in our short 3 years of marriage is beyond me (actually, I blame it on Target, who failed to update our registry whenever someone bought us an OXO spatula, and refusing to accept a return without a gift receipt). Anyways... So there I was, cleaning out the drawer, when what to my horror do I discover, but tiny little black "things" littered throughout. Bending closer to inspect, I quickly realized that my entire word was being flipped on its head. The mice... had crossed a line.

Our previous attempts to eliminate the mice have resulted in mass failure, aside from the one tiny baby one we caught. After we caught and disposed of the mouse, the others seemed to get the message and high tail it out of here. We hadn't seen droppings in weeks, and now, as if they'd gone out recruiting an army, they were back.

My nightmare was only beginning with the cooking utensil drawer. I inspected our silverwear drawer, only to find droppings in there. I cautiously opened the tupperwear cabinet, only to find droppings in there as well. With each door opened, my stomached lurched further and further up my throat, until I could take it no longer. I sat in a puddle of tears in our kitchen as I thought of all the dishwashing I'd have to do to sanitize everything. Through my tears I grapsed at my stomach as I thought of the previous few days and the numerous times we'd used our silverwear and cooking utensils.

I picked up the phone and called my landlord. I begged them to please come over and look at the number of droppings themself, to assure them we weren't just dealing with one mouse. To their horror, I was right, and thankfully (God bless them) they called the pest control people to come out and deal with the problem. As I finish this post up, the exterminator just pulled up in the driveway. Pardon me while I go let him in, and possibly kiss him, as I am so happy he's here.

Oh yeah, and does anyone want to come help me do dishes? Or should I just throw them all away and start over again?

Wicked Witch of the West

This mouse thing has totally turned me into the Wicked Witch. With several nights of no dead mice in our traps, Forrest and I rigged several traps up with cheese jammed into the trigger. Forrest rigged a few traps to be hair sensitive, and as we left the kitchen, I caught myself rubbing my hands together, murmerring, "I'll get you my pretty, and your little buddy too!". The next morning, we awoke, and voila! DEAD MOUSE!! Of course, my stomach totally flip flopped, and and I had to recruit Forrest into disposing of the beast, but alas! The mouse is dead. I did a little victory dance around the kitchen whilst singing, "Ding Dong, the mouse is dead, the mouse is dead...." and so on. We seem to have caught our critter.

That said, I still feel ridiculously filthy when I walk in my kitchen. Granted, I've scrubbed the counters down pretty good, but for some reason, I feel as though it could be slightly more sanitary. So out with the Clorox wipes, and enter the straight up clorox solution. I plan on spending my afternoon with clorox, gloves, and a tiny toothbrush to clean out every possible crevace these vermin may have touched. Wish me luck!

These are some Dadgumed Lucky Mice

Total Mouse Traps = 6
Bait = Peanut Butter


Dead Mice = 0
Mouse Traps licked clean = 6


Seriuosly, what are we doing wrong?

Of Mice and Corinne

I like to consider myself an animal lover. I've always had a special place in my heart for animals of all kinds (bugs don't really count). If the animal was furry and cute, I was in love. Of course, there are your usual housepets I loved, dogs, cats, gerbils, hamsters, rabbits, chinchilas, and so on. Then, of course outside animals, cows, horses, donkeys, pigs, anything on a farm. I even thought house mice were cute, and was one of the few in my 8th grade class who didn't freak out when a little grey mouse decided to sit in on a math lesson. I just figured he wanted to learn.

However, in recent years, I've found myself more and more prone to hate certain animals... yes... certain furry animals. Our old apartment was over-run with stray cats. At first, I felt sorry for the little cats, and tried my best to get the animal shelter to come out and catch them. Then the female cat had kittens. "Hooray!" I thought, "now the kittens will get management's attention and the animal shelter will catch them and they will be adopted!" Much to my changrin, the kittens were not captured, and instead, grew up and started having babies of their own. One time, a little kitten crawled up in my engine and got stuck. Thankfully I heard the kitten before starting my car, and managed to fish the little guy out. I called animal control to let them know I'd caught one, and they came out to collect it (they'd come to collect animals, just not trap them). Yet, even after talking with the animal control officer, they did nothing. Our apartment was overrun with cats, so much so that we began tracking fleas inside. In to where my precious baby, my beautiful 7 month old baby was learning to crawl. I started down a path I'd never thought I'd go down. I started hating those cats. I'd hiss at them, stomp at them, I was angry at them. But more than that, I was angry at the woman downstairs who refused to stop feeding the cats, thus keeping them around.

Thankfully, we moved away before I ever snapped, and I went back to loving animals again, even stray ones. Several weeks into our new home here in NC, we had a little visitor. A little grey mouse had gotten himself caught in one of our ceiling lights. We carefully trapped him (and his fried little buddy) in a trash can and promptly did the humane thing to do.... released him into the woods across the street. Problem solved. Or so we thought.

This this past saturday, we were cleaning the house, and I decided to do more than just a standard wipedown of the counters, and move everything off and scrub really good. As I moved the flour/sugar/tea canisters, I noticed little black droppings everywhere. Upon closer inspsection, it was obvious we had more visitors. This time, it wasn't just one. Angry that our little friend hadn't appreciated my saving him from proper drowning in the toilet, and instead had brought back a party, I set out to the local hardware store. We purchased two traps that looked easy enough to use. Gone, I thought, are the days of the old fashioned wood traps that are near impossible to set. In their place are the new plastic, easy to set traps. We purchased two and set home, gloating in our smart purchase, hoping to wake up the next morning with two dead mice. That was not the case. The little buggers still ran around our kitchen (as evidenced by their droppings everywhere), yet didn't venture near our traps.

The next night, we set the traps out again, this time with pieces of cracker set down deep in the trap. We awoke the following morning only to find our traps cleaned out, and little cracker crumbs strewn about the counter along with fresh mouse droppings. Infuriated, we headed back to the hardware store, only this time to purchasee some poison, because these mice just HAD TO GO. We set out the poison, inspired by the hardware store man who went on and on about how mice LOVE to eat this stuff, and how quickly they'd be gone. Just for safe measure, we set the traps out again, this time, baited with peanut butter. This morning, we awoke to find our traps cleaned out again (they licked the stupid trap CLEAN) and the bait/poison untouched.

I am beyond insinced. I have no idea what to do now. I may go out and purchase 50 old fashioned wooden traps and line the walls and counter with them, hoping a bloody massacre of mice will happen. Have any of you had this problem? I'm at my wits end cleaning the counters off every morning with clorox, and I'm trying very hard not to think about where else these little vermin may be roaming.