I first saw him at the weekend. He stuck his mousey nose out from behind my exercise bike. I didn't panic. I'm much bigger than him, after all. As far as household pests go, a mouse is infinitely preferable to almost everything else. In New York, we had roaches. Eurgh. A mouse is nice compared to that.
I roused Himself from bed, and we chased him around the sitting room, from couch to armchair to bookcase to exercise bike again. He was too fast for us. So the next day, off I went to the hardware shop around the corner.
"Have you any humane mousetraps, please?" I asked the nice youngfella who, I had learned the week before, knew very little about electric drills and probably even less about mousetraps.
Ten minutes of searching through the piles of hardware merchandise later, the youngfella had located some ordinary mousetraps and some poison. Ethical dilemma time. Obviously, I had wanted one of those 'capture' traps. When I caught the mouse, I could release him outside, to meet his slow and messy end at the claws of the rats along the canal, or the cats who sunbathe on the roof of our shed. You know, the humane option.
I took half a dozen ordinary traps home. The Internet informed me that cheese was a myth, propagated by Tom & Jerry. No, you want to bait your mousetraps with peanut butter. So I did. Little globs of peanut butter went on each of the traps, which were secreted around the place - behind the exercise bike, in the kitchen.
Nothing was heard or seen of the mouse for four days. I thought, ooh, we scared him off with our ineffectual chasing. Good riddance. Until last night.
The mouse was spotted scarpering across the kitchen counters. Eww! Thank Jeebus for my love of plastic containers for foodstuffs, and my Monica Gellar habit of always wiping the counter before and after I cook. I baited two traps with peanut butter and placed them next to the gap behind the dishwasher into which the mouse had dived.
This afternoon, I checked them again and found this:
Apologies for the blurry crappiness.
That's right. The trap had been dragged across the counter, and the peanut butter removed without springing the trap. Yes, those are teeth marks, or claw marks, or whatever, in the peanut butter.
The trap definitely works. I know this because the first thing I did was incredulously test it, and it sprang closed immediately on my fingers. It hurt like hell. Himself was caught by one as well, when we first set them. It's clear that the mouse is cleverer than both of us.
I am dealing with a goddamn CARTOON mouse here. How the hell did he do that? What am I going to do now?
9 comments:
Oh, Betty.
I feel your pain.
When I was away in the doctoral program I saw one in my dumpy basement apartment. On the phone with the husband, I squealed and said what should I do?
He said to give it a bath and make it a pet.
I slept with the light on and armed with knives and scissors.
Those traps won't do the trick.
Check out farm supply stores for the larger metal box contraptions designed for catch and release. Some hippie health food stores might have them so call around to save the leg work.
If you remove all access to food (including the baited traps) the mouse will have to leave when it gets hungry enough or until you catch him.
*shudder*
Urgh. You're absolutely right about the need for bigger traps. I caught him yesterday. It wasn't the quick and merciful end I had imagined. There was... twitching. For aaaaages. I had just about psyched myself up to put him out of his misery with a brick (urgh) when he finally gave up the ghost. Not pleasant. I hope he was was the only one.
hehe it sounds a little like The Roadrunner - I'm going through a smilar process at home although I did catch one with cheese in the trap - I was devastated seeing the poor wee thing and there was even a tiny pool of blood - the guilt was enormous. I still set a new one afterwards though...
Ugh, Conor, yeah, the blood is AWFUL! He sprayed. I was mopping it off the floor and the wall afterwards, feeling like the cruelest person in the world.
I am thinking of getting one of those ultrasonic high-frequency sound thingamajigs. I have been told by various people that they work brilliantly/don't work at all. I'm ready to try anything.
I tried the ultrasonic thing.
Actually I bought two, plugged them in, and then woke up in the wee hours with a killer headache.
My sister puts them in plastic bags to suffocate them when they get in the traps.
Ugh.
I just saw another one duck behind the washing machine. How many do you need to qualify as an 'infestation'?
I'm picking up an ultrasound yoke tomorrow.
Medbh, that plastic bag thing sounds like my Mum's suggestion when I rang her to tell her about the twitching: "Put him in a bucket of water". Urgh. I want to end his suffering Mum, not introduce a new layer of pain.
You're putting too much peanut butter on the traps. You just need enough that they'll have to try to scrape it off the metal. If you put a glob on they'll just eat the extra. Trust me, just smearing a tiny, tiny, tiny amount on it will still get their attention. They have a good sense of smell.
Foolproof trick from someone who had mouse problems in a small apartment:
Snickers. They love the chocolate and the peanuts, but you have to really stick it to the trap. Take a small piece about the size of your pinkie fingernail and push it down hard on the bait spot. They will go for it but will realize too late that it's not gooey and slippery like peanut butter.
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