Man or a Mouse?

That is just about the ultimatum I am going to end up delivering: It’s HIM – or ME! I’ve had it up to “here” with that little punk flaunting his underhandedness. What am I expected to do when I find out some elusive little jerk is stealing from me, while I unsuspectingly sleep!?

Yep, that’s right, I have a mouse in my house and its come to the point past intrigue and wonder at the little droning sounds above the shower. It’s entered full-blown bedlam in my mind now… and the tiny jerk is taunting me.

There was a period of time of about two weeks where we could hear something rustling and scratching above our ceiling in the master bathroom. I thought it was coming from behind the shower walls, but K said it was definitely above it, in the ceiling. Turns out we were both right.

One morning we woke up to a funky trail of dog food from the dish to the closet in the bathroom housing the hot water heater. I thought perhaps Simon had been playing in the kibbles and bits and kicked some under the slat-y door. No such luck there, K informed me. Opening the closet we found a decent sized pile of Purina and a peppering of tiny black pellets. Closer examining of the wall discovered a hole in the dry wall and a smattering of yellowish insulation.

The question now however was whether this was a mouse or an adolescent rat… for some reason “mouse” has a much safer sound to it. Little did I know, a few nights later I would find out for certain, that it is indeed a mouse.

It’s kind of funny. Well, NOW it’s kind of funny – the morning I discovered Pinky and the Brain were a little cleverer than I was; it wasn’t the slightest bit funny. I awoke to find my well-placed glue traps had been flipped over. I assumed that this meant that the little critter(s) has snagged at least a single paw and managed to wriggle free and drag the trap with it for some distance. However only a few short hours later, I discover that the same glue traps I had repositioned, now had some of that yellowish insulation spread over them…!!!

Another half day passes and it is nighttime, when I get most of my productive work done for my job, when I have to get up and use the “facilities”. I slung the bedroom door open and was a bit apprehensive thinking how freakish it would be to step on a rodent in the dark hallway. Low and behold I see a dark silhouette scurry in the shadows of the door – ACROSS MY FOOT – and into the kitchen!

I was way to slow with the reaching the light to even dream of catching a glimpse of the little visitor… that and I was still reeling from the mouse-on-my-sock-thing. I quickly went to the bathroom and finished relieving my bladder and then proceeded to check under the fridge and oven with a flashlight. Alas I couldn’t see Jack Squat down there, other than a mass of dust and many lost refrigerator magnets.

I’m relatively patient when it comes to being ornery. I went back to the scene of the foot-scurry and waited on the bedroom side of the threshold for any sign of smallish-life. My patience paid off rather quickly – within five minutes I saw a little gray, and yes, cute mouse come around the kitchen corner. It paused in the bright bathroom light that lit up the hallway, and then it probed its head around and saw me standing there. “He’s more scared of you than you are of it…” I kept repeating in my head – as it darted into the bathroom.

I made it around the corner in time to see it shoot up into a bath towel that had been hanging on that water heater door, drying after someone’s shower. I had previously blocked the gap under the door with the bathroom scale and a large package of Charmin. I could see a spot he could have gotten through – but I guess the critter was in too big of a hurry to find shelter to search the entire span of the door. The towel gently shook eerily, as if there were a small mouse climbing inside of it… which makes sense, since there WAS a small mouse climbing all up in the towel – yum!

I had enough time to think that I should grab the towel and wring it… or toss it into the shower stall – capturing the little beast. But that was all I had time for, cause he retreated from the towel, dropped onto the scale and looked right through me to the door and gunned it! What are the chances of a dude getting his foot scurried over more than once in any given night? I swear it happened twice to me! I tried to make a kicking motion with my leg – but it just froze there like my toes were welded to the tile… until he was behind me and in the kitchen again. That was when my knees buckled a little and allowed me to spin around to watch Mr. Mouse dive under the fridge.

I left the bathroom door wide open and moved the objects away from the water heater closet door, so that he could find his way back into the wall and hide. I figured if he was game to go back to his “home” it would be better than having him further explore the house where kids are sleeping and stuff.

I think it worked, and that next morning I went back to Home Depot and bought more traps (Glue Traps, Snapping Traps, Plastic Clip Traps, Bow Hunting Skills…) and some poison. The insulation over the glue traps was funnier this day and I shared the story with the schmuck who schleps the poison aisle in ‘Depot, but it didn’t get the humorous, empathetic, sympathetic or appreciative response I wanted. I did however get some recommendations on what I could use to try and kill the little guy. This was advice I took to heart and purchased enough to kill a squadron of mouses.

I dropped a few of the green bricks of death under the house (cause that’s the only place I knew my dogs and kids wouldn’t get at the poison) and haven’t heard a scratch out of the ceiling sense! Maybe my house is now Swiss cheese? Are my attic and crawlspace connected? Either I got the little bastard, or he has simply moved on to a different part fo the attic – after I scared him away from his previous haunting ground.

Regardless, I’m ready for any more in the near future. I have several traps in the closet cleverly poised and positioned to nail that little rat bastard should he return.