Mus Musculus Miseries
Ah, the common house mouse. A cute little critter, with some very interesting physical attributes. For instance, did you know that the common house mouse, lady version, can have up to 15 litters in a year, each litter having about 10 pups? And did you know that nowhere is safe from the little menaces?
Yeah. I know. Sweet lord, do I know.
As dedicated fans of kaffy_r's quotidien life may recall, we first discovered that mice had returned to Casa KathBob back in June.
The little buggers appeared in our main larder* but apart from having to empty the lowest two shelves of the unit that takes up the entire larder, it appeared to be a simple, if labor intensive, matter of vacuuming up mouse pellets and cleaning the carpet underneath the shelving unit. (The carpet was hard to clean, but since we placed both our larders in the closets of the office, which was originally a bedroom, we had to deal with carpet rather than more easily cleaned floors.) We found the hole they appeared to be coming from, stuffed it full of steel wool, then covered the area with the anti-mouse foam that hardened satisfactorally. Job finished, game over for mus musculus, right?
Nope.
About a week and a half ago, I spotted more mouse droppings. Well, damn. Once again I emptied the bottom shelves of the first larder, but found that the area under the shelving unit seemed only minimally affected. That wasn't good, because it meant we had to empty a large segment of the secondary larder, which necessitated us moving a Marshall amp, a smaller amp, and a large number of paintings, largely pieces I collected at science fiction cons back when I was single and moneyed, but some of Bob's mom's paintings, too. Luckily, the mice seemed more interested in the bubble wrap most of the paintings were covered with, but I still had to clean the frames; the little buggers used the top of the frames as tiny mouse highways, and since they drop their pellets, and pee as they go, it wasn't pleasant. And the carpet under the secondary larder was a real job to clean.
Once again, we found a hole from which they apparently entered the house (block us in one location, and we shall find another! Praise the mouse god, which makes us unstoppable!) We stopped it up with foam, strengthened the blockade with more steel wool, did a much more thorough cleaning, both of the carpet, and of the baseboards. Then I checked and confirmed that mice apparently hate cinnamon as much as ants do; I spread cinnamon next to the baseboard. We put the larders back.together, and managed to avoid killing each other, despite the irritation the situation effected in both of us.
Hurrah - we have triumphed once more! Right?
Oh, foolish kaffy_r. Four nights ago, Carter, who has been our kitty canary in the mouse mine (yes, that's a spectacularly mangled metaphor), began to look fixedly - again - at the baseboards on the other side of the office, next to my desk. I had a bad feeling about this.
Three nights ago, I came out of the bedroom, to find Carter chasing after his new toy. The little mouse tried its damndest to survive, while Carter illustrated the cliche; holding the little unfortunate by his tail. I was remarkably calm about the whole thing -
- nah, just kidding. I shrieked once, then spent the rest of the episode crying "Oh my god, the poor little thing!" repeatedly. Bob took matters in necessary hand, and put the poor thing out of its misery, wrapped it in paper towels and dropped it in the kitchen garbage can. I told him, with a discreet shudder, that I could go a long time without seeing him stomp on a house mouse.
I actually went 24 hours. The next night, at almost the same time, Carter rocketed out of the office, in pursuit of another mouse. This one got the foot stomp of mercy a lot sooner than its unfortunate predecessor. After which I cleaned a little bit of mousey blood off his sneaker bottoms.
We finally found where the last two mice had come in: a hole in the wall next to the sidewalk. Our aging building has settled, causing space to open up between the floor and the baseboard. I spent a great deal of time on my stomach, stuffing steel wool into a four-foot-long stretch of baseboard-floor gap, under my desk. After which I had to change my clothes, put them into the laundry, and take a shower, to get steel wool shards off my body. I had to vacuum the carpet really carefully, so that Carter wouldn't get steel wool shards in his paws.
Augh. Thus far, we have remained mouse free, mouse dropping free, and mouse-pee.free, all using tactics shown to us by the one pest control guy who was happy to educate us and keep him out of a repetitive job many years ago.
Please, universe; no more mice? Please?
*Did you know that people younger than 68 don't know what "larder" means? I fear for our republic.
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