Joining the Club
I am very excited to announce that we’ve officially joined the Old House with Mice Club! Now, our membership to this illustrious club shouldn’t be a complete surprise. As you long time readers will recall, we had a floater in our toilet this summer, so we knew these little bastards we creeping through the Queen. Since we’ve sealed the Devil Queen up (relatively speaking), the rat snake that used to live under hot-tub hasn’t been able to move in this fall to regulate our rodent population.
Saturday night my wife and I were sitting in the living room watching TV when I saw a dark something dart across the floor. I hopped up and ran over to where I’d seen it. This startled my wife. She jumped and asked, “What is it?!”
“I think I saw a mouse.”
On cue, the mouse darted out from behind her acoustic guitar, ran under the living room door and back down the main hall. It was gone before I could get the door open.
“Holy shit, that mouse was HUGE! Are you sure that wasn’t a rat?”
“I don’t think so, I think it was a mouse, but it was a big one,” I said.
I haven’t figured out where the little bastard is hiding, but we have a great solution to the problem. We’re going to retrieve Thera, our cat, from my in-laws (he’s been with them since we moved out of our old house) and turn him loose in the Devil Queen. He’s spent all summer perfecting his hunting techniques on lizards, so he should be ready to terrorize rodent flesh.
Saturday night my wife and I were sitting in the living room watching TV when I saw a dark something dart across the floor. I hopped up and ran over to where I’d seen it. This startled my wife. She jumped and asked, “What is it?!”
“I think I saw a mouse.”
On cue, the mouse darted out from behind her acoustic guitar, ran under the living room door and back down the main hall. It was gone before I could get the door open.
“Holy shit, that mouse was HUGE! Are you sure that wasn’t a rat?”
“I don’t think so, I think it was a mouse, but it was a big one,” I said.
I haven’t figured out where the little bastard is hiding, but we have a great solution to the problem. We’re going to retrieve Thera, our cat, from my in-laws (he’s been with them since we moved out of our old house) and turn him loose in the Devil Queen. He’s spent all summer perfecting his hunting techniques on lizards, so he should be ready to terrorize rodent flesh.
posted by John | 3:39 AM
4 Comments:
ooh ooh ooh can I join the club too?? I had to move the stove to install the range hood, and there was an awful lot of mouse poop back there. I blame the dogs for not taking care of the problem.
When I moved in to my last house it was crawling with them. There where little mouse holes in the baseboards and everything. I didn’t realize it when I bought the place but I had a serious infestation. Then I took in a stray cat named Sadie. Sadie seems like the most timid, sweet little cat in the world but she is a vicious killer when it comes to rodents. For about 2 months after I took her in the house and yard looked like a scene from a war movie with little mouse carcasses laying about. She would decapitate them or eviscerate them and then leave them out to show me her wonderful work.
If it is any consolation, we have a persistent rat problem in our decrepit Victorian row-home. We suspect the problem originates in our neighbor's house. So, in addition to our many renovation projects, we've become rat-abatement experts. We are still trying to find the point of entry. Our kitchen, which we'll one day gut & renovate (in part to solve this problem), is a minefield of glue traps. Every week or so, a rat becomes stuck to one, and my husband bludgeons it to death with a length of pipe we've named "the rat-killing stick." My husband is allergic to cats, or we would have tried your approach. For what it's worth, I think your approach will be more effective -- and less traumatizing -- than ours. Few sounds are as disturbing as the death-shrieks of a rat. You might also check for any uncapped sewer vent pipes.
So far none seen alive, but I had the Terminix guy come remove two dead ones a few weeks ago. Got caught in the traps in the attic. They weren't there in the spring. What kinda crazy mice go live in a sweltering attic all summer!?
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