The Mouse

If we're friends on facebook, then you know ALL the drama this past month about our uninvited guest, the mouse. 

Yuck.

I hate mice more than I hate spiders, and that's really saying something. 

A few weeks ago, I woke up one morning at 5am and I could hear something munching something under my dresser. It kept me up, it was so loud. So at 6am, I pulled on some sweatpants and drove to the grocery store, where I bought 10 sticky mouse traps. Bryant didn't even know I had left the house. I got home and placed them all around the dresser, thinking I'd surely catch it sometime that day.

Ever. Single. Night. that mouse would somehow, get past the traps, and eat it's dinner under my dresser. I even had two traps under there! And every day, I'd pull the bottom drawer out thinking I'd find a mouse, and instead, I'd find a half eaten cracker, or fruit loop. One morning, I headed into the bathroom and nearly had a heart attack when the little monster poked it's head out from where the wall and the bathtub meet. So I set two traps there. 

On another day, I was at the computer when it scurried along the wall near my feet. Another two traps along that wall.

On another day, while watching a movie in the living room, I watched it climb out of the heating vent and run into the closet. I yelled at Bryant to keep his eyes on the door to make sure it didn't run out and I set traps all along the threshold. 

Two nights later, It was directly under my bed, munching loudly away. 

At one point, I went to get Savannah's clothes out for the next day and found mouse poop in every single drawer. I took all her clothes out, washed them all, sprayed and wiped out all the drawers, then unleashed nearly a full can of lysol on them. I'm kind of a germaphobe (I make Bryant wash his hands for EVERYTHING like changing diapers, taking out the trash, mowing the lawn. He puts up with me...)

I found more mouse poop in the bottom drawer of my dresser, but I still took out every single drawer and did the same. 

In total, after nearly a month, I had 24 mouse traps (all different kinds) and some "One Bite" that Sandy sent me (thank you Sandy!) and the only thing I managed to catch was Deagan 4 different times (all in the sticky ones. I put the snap traps in the vents and under my bed where the kids can't get to them.)

This mouse was either really clever, or very lucky. There was one dramatic night when my sister and I were watching a movie and we saw it go into the closet again, so we set 4 traps across and 2 deep along the threshold and proceeded to take EVERYTHING out of the closet that was on the floor, like an old stroller, my yoga mat (that I threw away. It was falling apart, had cobwebs on it, smelled, and now had had a mouse near it) and some jackets. The mouse ran out towards us, and made it through all the traps! It ran into the vent on the opposite side of the room, where we placed traps all around. It kept poking it's head out, then scratched around the vent for a while. Seriously, this was the loudest mouse I had ever heard in my life. Every night it would keep me up.

Occasionally I'd find the peanut butter on a trap all smeared and eaten. Or crackers missing from another. Once, I found some hair stuck to one and decided that at least waxing the mouse was a small victory in and of itself.  Somewhere, that mouse had a Brazilian wax and was covered in peanut butter. 

I ALMOST caved in and got a cat. The allergies were almost worth it.

Then, it happened. We caught the little sucker! Last night, Savannah didn't want to go to bed yet so I let her come lay in my bed and watch a movie with Bryant and I. There was a sticky trap right next to my side of the bed that had sat there and not moved for weeks. The mouse had to pass by it in order to get underneath my bed every single night. And then all of a sudden, I heard a squeak and I looked down to see it stuck. I started yelling "Yes! Yes! Yes!" and Savannah looked over the bed and shouted "WooHoo!" and gave me a high five. I was a little worried that she would be sad, because she's referred to this mouse as a pet and constantly talked about making it a door in the wall for it's home. But she took a look and said "Oh, that's not my mouse Mom. That's yours." When she asked what we were going to do with it, I told her that Dad was going to take it outside and let it go. Sometimes you gotta lie to your kids to spare their feelings. I mean, we're talking about the girl who cried this morning because all the snow was gone. I had to show her the snowflake symbol on my weather app to show her it would snow again before she stopped crying. 

I'm keeping the traps around though, for every one you see, who knows how many more are around.

Uck, they are so gross.