planetdan

Monday, September 18, 2006 :::

FURRY LITTLE BASTARD.

After nearly killing my entire household (including my esteemed houseguest) with carbon monoxide a couple weeks ago, I had to leave my doors wide open in the middle of the night to rid my basement of the poisoned air, and in doing so it seems that I have acquired a whole new houseguest: a mouse. I first saw it last week scurrying across my kitchen floor and I had to do a doubletake. I always assumed that my house was unwelcoming to such creatures, so my mind wasn't even able to process the possibility.

Considering my phobic reactions to spiders, robots, and soup, you might predict that I would have a problem with a rodent moving in. But honestly, the mouse itself doesn't bother me all that much, except for the fact that it could be hiding anywhere and chewing through anything, and god only knows where it's pooping.

So I set up traps. Just the normal ol' Tom and Jerry kind with the trigger and snapping spring device, only I substituted peanut butter for cheese. The next morning I woke up to find the traps unsprung, but the peanut butter had been licked clean. I don't know how he did it, but I can only imagine it was ever so gently. Suddenly I wasn't just providing the little bastard with free lodging, but a nice greasy meal as well. And probably some rodential diarrhea to boot.

So I got some sticky glue traps and positioned them strategically around the traps in a way that would make it quite difficult to snag the prize without getting caught. But the other morning, I woke up to this:

How in the...? He's like Houdini or something. What gives? There ain't so much as a single mouse print in the glue trap and the peanut butter is but a memory. Not to mention that K-Mack and I had him trapped in the corner the other night only to have him miraculously disappear, escaping our clutches. It's driving me nuts.

Tonight I've got a pretty special concoction of cheese, peanut butter, spring traps, and glue in store for that little freeloading bastard. So I'll keep you posted.

::: posted by dan at 8:07 PM :: [ link ] :: (39) comments

Comments are Closed On this Post

39 previous comments:

My deepest sympathy to you. I once had a colony of mice live with me for over 2 months. Place the food treats in the center of the glue pad. Watch out for the strong little bastard that tries to remove himself from the glue pad and slides the pad under the refridgerator from the jerking motion. It's heartbreaking to watch the futility of his exercise. It is satisfying to whack him over the head with a shovel. And, don't worry where he may be pooping. You'll notice the little bits that look like chocolate jimmies that kids use on icecream. Best of luck to you!

By

Michelle, at 9:03 PM

Why not just poison the peanut butter?

By

Erik, at 9:34 PM

Yeah, good luck with that little mousie. I live on a farm and these field mice are hard core. I tried the friendly catch and release type traps (mainly cuz I didn't want to clean up any mess) but the little buggers actually ATE THROUGH THE PLASTIC TRAP to get to the bait (club crackers and half-popped popcorn kernels - the buttery, salty smell seems to draw them in).
Check it out -
http://home.comcast.net/~backtocapistrano/DSCN1425.JPG
...not the clearest picture, but you get the idea...the wide shot's a little clearer...
http://home.comcast.net/~backtocapistrano/DSCN1428.JPG
Gooood luck!

By

Fran with one "N", at 9:38 PM

You don't want to just poison them cuz they'll crawl off & die. Then, they'll stink the place up. Also, you won't want a pet to find the poison and crawl off & die...unless it's a cat.

You do want to get him out before he invites all his mice bitches to come into your cozy house and have lots and lots and lots of babies.

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Michelle, at 9:49 PM

As much as you hate that mouse, you will feel sorry for it when you see it struggling to escape its gluey prison. I'm not a mouse apologist, I just know that I'm still haunted by the memory of that pathetic sight--even after two of those bastards terrorized me for weeks!

By

Anonymous, at 10:17 PM

Consider yourself lucky. I lived in an apartment that found itself infested with bats one winter. My catopotamus, roomate, and I managed to kill no less than 10 of the little flying rat bastards!

By

Jon, at 10:37 PM

try useing some stale or old bread...
ball it up and coat with peanut butter...

and really cram it into the trap...

my girlfriend has mice in her apartment and that's yeilded the best resulst (gross dead mice semi-warm, dangleing from the trap... and the best is if there's dry blood so you get a nice resistance when you attemtpt to pull it off the tile floor)

also, if you find the mouse hole, dress up in a cat suit and wait with a hammer... he won't come out but he'll sneek around the other side and give you hot foot... promptly casusing you to fling the hammer in the air above your head, which will fall on your head and stars and planets will circle around your head...

then he'll take pictures of you and some passed out friends, all in fur suits... and confuse teenagers all across America...

By

Jay, at 11:08 PM

wow erik is brilliant!

I had this problem at my parents, my mom is an upholsterer and they would in with the furniture she'd do...

By

the other sarah, at 11:26 PM

pumpkin seeds work really well too... you can jam them onto the trap really well so that they'll be harder for Jerry to remove...

By

advice from down under, at 11:45 PM

Dan, why don't you try a HUMANE trap????? You don't have to kill the poor thing. It's just trying to make a living like everyone else. God, that glue thing is horrific. Seriously people, can you imagine it happening to you or your dog?? Have a little empathy and compassion for the little critters.

By

Anonymous, at 11:56 PM

i tried that "humane" trap, and seeing as i forgot about it for a couple of days, that mouse was no less dead than he would have been if i'd set out a tom & jerry trap.

what worked for me - like a charm: a snicker's bar. seriously. just slice a small chunk from the bar, cram it onto the spike on the trigger, and wait. mice & rats LOVE chocolate, and i think they love nugat even more. my exterminator clued me in on this little factoid, and he was right.

dead mice galore. i have no idea how your mouse foiled the gluetrap though... but gluetraps can be grody. i had a mouse get his face stuck to a gluetrap once and he yanked out his eyeball, and unfortunately, he was still alive when i found him.

By

melissa mcgee, at 12:08 AM

cat = mouse caught. Glue trap is a bloody mess. Mouse on glue = mouse trying to flee thus ripping hair/skin. I have seen it - I still pee my bed.

The "old fashion mouse trap" - does the mouse live in a little dome shaped hole in the wall...Mickey is even pissed at the thought - seriously you must know a lesbian - use a cat.

By

Anonymous, at 1:27 AM

phobic reaction to soup? that's a new one

By

Anonymous, at 6:56 AM

Walnut pieces in the trap.

To quote Billy Dee "Works Everytime"

By

Randy, at 9:08 AM

Take a bit of cracker, dip it into corn syrup - it laquers the cracker to the trap but Jerry doesn't know that. If getting the snap trap up seems gross, position it in a brown lunch bag so all you have to do is is grab the bag and walk it out to the trash.

I mean um, that's what I have read. We don't have mice in Ohio.

By

Dayton Tracy, at 9:12 AM

The glue trap works.

-Jason.

By

Anonymous, at 9:15 AM

Wow, Dan. We must be related. I have phobic reactions to wooden chopsticks, wooden coffee stirrers, wooden, popsicle sticks, plain old wooden spoons, and bird poop. I've been known to gag on more than one occasion because someone said "bird poop" one too many times.

But that's another story.

By

tcarole, at 12:31 PM

Awww...Leave the little guy alone...At least use a live trap. He won't be able to get at the peanut butter unless he goes inside and you're probably more likely to catch him that way. Are you sure K-Mack isn't licking off the peanut butter during the night?

By

KEW, at 12:58 PM

Dan, please use a humane trap. The result will still be the same, you will get rid of the mouse yet it will not have to die a horrible death. When mice get stuck on those glue pads they will sometimes try to chew their feet off to try and escape! That is just not right. Nor is that barbaric death trap that I can't believe they still sell in stores. Yes, mice are a pain in the butt but surely you can get rid of them in a more humane manner. Torturing a living thing should never be the answer to anything.

By

Anonymous, at 1:34 PM

A tip for those of you that insist on using glue traps. When the mouse is stuck, if you pour vegetable oil on the trap and mouse, you can often free them using a chopstick. Obviously the best course of action is not to use them at all.....But at least let the little guys go after the torture....

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KEW, at 2:54 PM

Tie a little piece of cloth around the part of the trap where you put the peanut butter. Then cover the cloth with peanut butter, that way the lil mouse will pull on the cloth while its eating the peanut butter and the trap will go. Works every time. Glue traps are cruel.

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Anonymous, at 3:06 PM

the people begging you to use humane traps must like rodents in their homes ? hello ? they are rodents. and are no good for anything inside your home !!!
I threw my back out a few years back chasing a mouse. I was so happy when I killed it, seeing that it required surgery to fix my chasing (not killing) injury. kill them however you can. if I saw a mouse in my house today, I'd stomp on it without a tiny shred of guilt.

By

Anonymous, at 3:25 PM

Amen!

I hate rodents; they're nasty.

By

Anonymous, at 3:49 PM

From the movie Grease...

Frenchie: Men are rats. Worse than that, they're fleas on rats. Worse than that, they're amoebas on fleas on rats.

If that's not enough to make you want to kill them, then I don't know what is...not to kill men, but kill the mice. {shudder}

By

Anonymous, at 7:44 PM

We had a mouse in our garden shed. I think he was attracted to the bird seed then decided to chew on the weedeater cord. That meant a death sentence.
We got the D-Con no-see/no-touch trap and it worked great. Didnt see it, didnt touch it, but we knew he was caught by the heaviness of the trap.
Humane traps, my ass. When you or your kids humanely die from hantavirus, gimme a call.

By

Anonymous, at 8:10 PM

Last time I had mice, it was a whole family, and unlike your mouse, they were totally stupid. So stupid, in fact, that my roommate and boyfriend caught them (one at a time) under a tupperware container, and with no other options for their disposal, they threw them off our third-floor balcony. I'm glad I wasn't home...and I'm glad I wasn't the downstairs neighbor.

By

Anonymous, at 9:43 PM

The little pellets they leave behind are gross... but more important is where they pee (e.g.: "everywhere"). Do what you have to and get rid of this thing now while you still only have to face one.

By

Mr Mark, at 7:34 AM

Hey Dan, not a big fan of mice myself, but glue traps are just plain cruel, why not splurge and buy one of those electronic, ultrasonic rodent repellent thingees? you plug it in the wall, it emits some frequency that the mice can't tolerate so they move on - they're relatively inexpensive (about $15)

By

Anonymous, at 12:19 PM

Anonymous, at 12:32 PM

Ya know we had this same problem and then come to find out it wasn't a mouse at all, but a damn cricket that was eating the peanut butter.

By

Lisa, at 1:00 PM

Don't do the glue trap, Dan. It's just mean. I get the impression you are a lil' sensitive, and you might possibly lost sleep with the results. Killing him quickly and cheaply is the ticket and the standard mouse trap with a snickers ort seems the answer. You can avert your eyes while you toss the trap.
Enough of that, already. More about the soup phobia, por favor? If there's a previous blog on the subject, please link. My latch-key kids exist on canned soup.
Also, please post a follow-up on the mouse hunt.

By

toddbee, at 2:04 PM

I may be dating myself here but this debate reminds me of a skit from SNL several years back where the fate of Larry the Lobster was in the hands of the viewers. At the end of the show it was determined that Larry would live so they put him in a limo and threw confetti on him. Just a thought...

By

Anonymous, at 3:58 PM

Step One: Prepare fudge
Step Two: Allow children into the house long enough to swipe fudge and leave container partially open.
Step Three: Allow men into house long enough to leave toilet lid open.
Step Four:Leave town for three days to visit family for holidays.

When you return, mouse will have gorged herself on free fudge buffet, wandered past reflective surface, caught sight of post-fudge binge body and commit suicide by tossing fat, furry self into depths of toilet bowl.

Worked for me!

By

darcy, at 8:08 PM

i hate to tell you this, but there is never just one mouse. he/she is probably feeding a family

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Anonymous, at 4:21 PM

Wow, I can't believe how many people are completely freaking out about the possibility of a mouse getting hurt. Sure, I'm not about to go hunting mice in the wild and stomping on them just to be mean, but damn... it's a people house, not a mouse house.

That said. When I had to catch a mouse (a DAMN fast one at that), I was too much of a wimp to kill/hurt it, so I used cookie crumbs--chocolate chip, of course--to bait it while I was awake and then trapped it under an upside-down trash can, carried it to the door and let it out.

Good luck reclaiming your home!

By

Cara, at 6:53 PM

I would like to add my voice to the chorus for a "humane" trap. The descriptions of glue traps mentioned here made me shudder. Bad for your karma, that's all I can say. Have a little heart and catch and release! He is obviously smart--it'd be a shame to kill him. Kinda like the circus mouse, from Green Mile. In fact, I think you should keep him and train him.

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lola, at 3:42 PM

Dan, I once had a mouse problem. One day I found (cue "Carmina Burana" here) *three mice drowned in a bottle of olive oil.* Those little shits had actually gotten the cap off and tumbled in one after another. I still vomit a little in my mouth when I think of it. We called in the exterminator after that, of course. I mean, my cat could only do so much.

That said, I have sort of grown to love Houdini. Please catch and release him, just don't toss him out the door or he'll just walk right back in through a hole you can't see. You gotta take him way out in the woods and do a Jimmy Hoffa on him.

By

PeaceBang, at 4:13 PM

Dan, once you solve your mouse problem, however you choose to do it (I've always been a fan of the snap traps with the "flip top" so that all I see is a released spring on one end, and a dead rodent tail on the other), a very effective way to prevent future infestations is to soak cotton balls with peppermint oil and leave them wherever mice might get in. It's organic! It even smells pretty good!

By

Anonymous, at 10:38 PM

isn't it amazing how many comments one little mouse can generate? you would post that and go on hiatus, dan, leaving us to wonder what fate has befallen our fuzzy little hero...

By

lola, at 1:36 AM

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