We have a mouse problem. It’s not surprising. We live in an old building, it’s been a cold winter and we always have lots of mouse-friendly snacks lying around. When I think infestation, I think squalor, so I thought by simply cleaning up after ourselves the mice would disappear.
They say you could have mice living with you and yet never see on in person. Not so with our mouse. One frigid evening in December, before I noticed the tiny jimmie-shaped droppings and nibbled-opened packages, I was happily bundled on the couch and watching TV when I noticed a tiny brown mouse poke his head from under the TV stand and tiptoe under the coffee table. I held my breath and watched the cute little creature. Then visions of mice nesting in the pile of pajamas in the bottom of my closet flashed before my eyes.
“Eek! Go away mouse.”
The mouse continued to make bold forays into our living room, to the point where it sauntered across the room, stopped in the middle of the run and stared at me, pointedly.
I called the landlord who promised to lay poison. Several weeks later the handyman showed up and deposited three small packets of rodenticide, one in the pantry, one under the sink, and one behind the refrigerator. Nibble marks on everything nibbleable in the pantry, except the poison.
I didn’t consider traps; especially since the snap traps Matt set in Kansas killed just one mouse, and the runt of the litter at that. Then the unthinkable happened. The mouse nibbled my Cadbury mini-eggs. In my shoulder bag! While it was on my sofa! In my bedroom!
Buying mouse traps is like buying tampons or condoms, vaguely embarrassing and much more satisfying when you slap down the package on the counter and hold the checkout person’s eyes in a steely glare. (Remind me to tell you a story about a former roommate who, seeing a package of condoms in my CVS bag, said to me “Wow. I wish I had the guts to buy condoms at the drugstore.”)
The hardware store guy totally flirted with me while I bought my mousetraps.
I bought the cheese flavored mousetraps, you know, the ones that say they don’t require baiting because the mice are inexplicably drawn to the plastic, yellow, cheese-shaped trip foot.
It doesn’t smell like cheese. I didn’t taste it.
I arranged the baitless traps in the kitchen: on the counter between the stove and the toaster, next to the microwave, and on the floor, beside my crafting desk. I hide in the living room, deliciously touching my fingertip together and moving my eyebrows up and down. Ok, really Elias and I go to Foxwoods. (Remind me to tell you the story about how I let another man run his hands all over my body.)
When Elias and I return from Foxwoods, I go to work and he goes home to our apartment. No trapped mice. Elias goes to Vermont. I go to class, and later call Elias on the walk home and keep him on the phone with me so I report to him the status of our traps.
We caught a mouse. By the foot. The mouse is trying to escape via the stove, but has wedged itself and the trap underneath the burner grate. Ack. What do I do? Do I leave the mouse alone and hope it dies quickly of shock or a heart attack? Do I smack it with a frying? I’d have to draw it out from under the burner, hold it in place and whack it. No thanks.
I call my friends. Fran isn’t home. I remember her saying something about killing mice in a jar partially filled with whiskey. I don’t have any whiskey in the house and I decide not to experiment with rubbing alcohol. Jes suggests death by asphyxiation. The process involves trapping the mouse in a glass container and lighting a match to remove the air. She reveals that she had to kill baby bunnies this way. Jes killed baby bunnies! She further freaks me out by insisting that mice will gnaw their trapped body parts off to escape traps. Well, I do not want some three-legged mouse hobbling around my house, bent on revenge.
The internet is no help. I try to find suggestions for what to do when a mouse is trapped but not killed in a snap trap. Several minutes of searching and I can only come up with, “Kill mouse humanely. Deposit in trash.” Thanks, internet. I discover many variations of a Rube Goldberg device, involving paper towel tubes, wooden spoons, and double-stick tape designed to plunge mice into a bucket of water where they drown.
Drowning! That’s so much better than bludgeoning. Much more humane. For me.
I fill the mop bucket with a good amount of Mr. Clean (Ultimate Orange scent) and water. I approach the poor panicked mousie with my kitchen tongs and a wooden spoon. I manage to extricate the mouse and trap from the gas burner. Using the tongs, hoisting the mouse by the trap, I shield my eyes and plop the (squeaking!) mouse into the bucket. I hide in my bedroom for half an hour. I swear I can hear splashing. And a mouse rescue team armed with tiny ropes and life preservers.
Finally, I venture out of the bedroom. The mouse did not use the trap as a life raft, as I feared it might. It is dead. Drowned. I kick the bucket (heh) to make sure. Turing to my torture devices, I select the tongs again, and pluck the bloated carcass out of the bucket, wrap the body (and trap) in three garbage bags and toss it in the outside trash bin.
No mice since the execution. They must have watched it from underneath the refrigerator or behind the stove.