Friday, May 25, 2012

Mouse in the House


We got mice.

We saw the first one scurry through our storage pantry about a month ago.  My dear Watson tried all different traps in all different locations, but mostly they were just licking the peanut butter right off the trap and slipping by unharmed.  They ruined 2 bags of powdered sugar, 2 bags of pasta, 10 ramens, 2 ten lb. bags of pancake mix (I bought the first bag because it was on sale and I’m in charge of pancakes at the family reunion. Then I bought the second bag after the mice chewed through the first one.  I haven’t bought another bag yet), and a bag of brown rice.

My boss gave us a great tip for catching our food ruiners: wedge a peanut in the trap and put the peanut butter on top of the nut. Then, after they lick the PB off they’ll  start nibbling at the nut and…SNAP you got ‘em.

We tried it and after a little more than an hour we caught one.  This method worked pretty well for 6 or so more mice. We also got a couple in those sticky traps. That’s the worst though because then you have to go out and murder them.

My dear Watson caught a baby mouse in a milk carton and threw it away – just let him suffocate.  The next morning I found another baby dead in the toilet. It drowned, so we flushed it. 

A couple nights later we caught one in a box in the kitchen. 

The best by far is when we got 2 babies in one trap at the same time.  Never seen that before.

We’re up to 15 mice – 9 of them were babies.

Several times a day my dear Watson would have to go into the storage closet and throw out a dead mouse, then re-set the trap.  Our garbage man couldn’t come soon enough. One time I was at home and heard the familiar snap of a trap. My dear Watson was gone and for some reason I was feeling bad about his fate as a mouse killer/disposer. 

So I bucked up and went in with the needle nose pliers and picked up the trap with a dead mouse in it.  I got a bag and went on the front porch and took a few deep breaths. 

The hardest part was removing the bar that had broken the little neck.  I knew when I moved that bar the mouse would drop, which was just kind of disgusting.  It worked though, and then I tied up the bag and through it in the dumpster while plugging my nose without hands (a trait that most Porter’s have).

We haven’t had any more for a few days, so maybe we got the last of them. I hope no one in Heaven is recording mouse deaths. 

6 comments:

  1. Wow! Disgusting! Is that really a Poter trait? I can do it and Russell calls it "turning off my sniffer" and he really can't do it. Who else besides you can do it?

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  2. I can do it!

    Yuk! Yuk! Yuk! I can't believe all the food the ruined and how many you've caught. Buy a cat.

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  3. Kendall says he thinks he can do it too.

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  4. I thought everyone could do that! I definitely do it all the time! And it is sad to kill a bunch of mice, but a little gratifying too. We had a major problem in NYC.

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  5. Ha you funny nose people! Abby, I'm way jealous of your Arches trips, those were cool pics. But I'm not jealous of your mice adventure, yikes! Way to be brave and take one out. See you soon! ps its sandi i just did anonymous to make it faster, although my typing this is probably ruining that idea...

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  6. I think it's funny that in a 500-word post about trapping and killing mice, everyone's comments are about the same non-mice-trapping sentence, most especially because that is the one line I wanted to comment about, too. I can do the Porter nose-plugging trick! And I've never talked to anyone else who could do it (though I've had that conversation with very few people). We're sisters!!

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