For those of you not completely wired into my life via Facebook and Twitter (because like, you 3 people who read this might be anonymous strangers)... I have a mouse problem.
It started somewhere in the time period when I was in Fort Myers... Roxy kept barking and sniffing at a cabinet/area in our kitchen. Skip figured she was just crazy, so we let it go. Upon my return home, I also noticed her weird behavior... So I kept monitoring it. And eventually... Saw it.
IT was a mouse. A little-bitty, cutesy-wootsy, gray mouse. Said mouse was seen stealing food from my puppydogs' bowl, and then scurrying up under the cabinets with the bounty. This, of course, happened on the weekend, so I was unable to talk to our landlord about it. So, Skipper and I went about our regularly scheduled weekend fun... And came home to a dead mouse on the living room floor. Way to go, Roxy and Milo!
Or not.
Come Tuesday morning (this occured over Memorial Day weekend), I marched to the management office and told them the news: Our Apartment Has A Mouse Problem. I had spoken to the other people who live in my building, and they too had seen mice in their kitchens. This was, indeed, a Problem. The manager's husband agreed to take a look around my apartment, mostly just to appease me... Because once he surveyed the situation, he pretty much told me, "Oh well. It's just mice." Uh... Thanks, pal.
After this encounter (and an encounter with a mouse who was trapped in the pots and pans drawer under my stove), Skip and I decided to put out sticky glue paper traps. I was not thrilled with this idea... These mice are small and adorable, and I like animals a lot. So I made Skip agree to take every necessary precaution to save any surviving mice... If you pour cooking oil on them, they un-stick. And I also made him swear to set the traps at night, pick them up in the morning, and never speak of dead mice to me.
So the first night... We caught three. THREE. And two survived. (I made him tell me.) So, this brings our found mouse total to 5. (There was a dead baby one on the floor the day the man told me mice were inevitable.) Five! FIVE FREAKIN' MICE! In less than a week. This can't be normal, or acceptable... We're very clean people. So what the hell is going on?!
A few days after the three were caught, I was cleaning the kitchen... Putting away dishes that had been sitting in the dish drainer thing overnight... When I saw it... Well, them. MOUSE TURDS. Poop. Little tiny mouse droppings ON MY CLEAN DISHES. [Insert hysteria here.]
I went on a Google-ing rampage for things that repel mice... Armed with a new wealth of knowledge, and Skip's debit card, I went to Wal-Mart. Twenty-two dollars later, I had a sack full of homemade mouse repelling stuff. Mint extract, moth balls, and Bounce dryer sheets. Odd, yes, but hopefully effective. So I assembled little "sachets" of smelly stuff... Hoping that something would turn away our little houseguests. I tossed them under the cabinets, behind the fridge, and on the countertops... Anywhere the little buggers had been spotted.
My house now stunk like nothing I'd ever smelled before... But for several days, no mice. We had one little baby one that showed up on a sticky trap. (#6) So, we call it a success, yes? Not so fast. These scents are not permanent... They actually wear off in a few days, which is a blessing and a curse. My house no longer smells weird, but now the mice have returned.
And this brings me to Lucky #7... The mouse that made its way onto a sticky trap at about 8:30 this morning. I heard the all to familliar crash and squeak that signals a stuck rodent. The dogs ran to the kitchen, the mouse screamed at them, and they retreated. Fantastic. I texted Skip before I got out of the bed... "Did you pick up the sticky traps this morning before you left?" His response: "I'm sorry."
Ugh. So now there's a sticky, squirmey, squeaking mouse in my kitchen. I can hear it thrashing and moving, and the plastic scraping across the floor. I do not want to enter the kitchen, but I try to gather courage... I make it around the corner, and the thing screams at me. I didn't even see it. I retreated to the bedroom, and texted Skip again. "COME HOME NOW. I'm trapped in the bedroom." But of course... He can't come home. He's working out on the right-of-way, about 30 miles away from where I am. FML.
I called the office, and explained to the manager my predicament... I'm terrified of this screaming squirming thing on my floor... The mouse problem is really their problem, so I'm gonna need someone to remove this thing from my premises pronto. Her response was less than sympathetic... She said that everyone was out working on the property, but she'd see what she could do. FABULOUS.
About an hour later, her daughter shows up to extract the stuck mouse. I look like a complete wuss, but I really can't handle this. I want to kill my boyfriend. I want to GTFO of this apartment. I don't care where these mice go, as long as they leave me the hell alone. I've never lived somewhere that mice were common... Where people just go, "Eh, it's just a mouse," and expect you to just deal. I've caught 7. SEVEN. That's a lot of mice for a week. And several of them were babies. Eeeeech.
I've also recently noticed that they chewed a hole in the dog food bag... Which means I need to keep it out of their reach, and get the dogs off their free-feeding schedule. I've moved the bowls into our bedroom, but the last thing I need is a damn mouse in my bed.
Did I mention I want to kill my boyfriend?!
--Malaya
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