I like to follow up my deep, heartfelt posts with something silly and ridiculous, and I was handed the perfect topic the other morning. We have been having a bit of a mouse problem in our house and for the second time in my life I have critters living in my gas stove. The fact that the stupid things can even survive in there blows my mind. I assumed an oven would be too hot for habitation and now have this fantasy about the mice who live in there being hyper sensitive to the sound of the stove kicking on. As soon as the clicks start I can see them squeaking "RUUUNNNNN!" and scurrying out of the stove at full speed. (The voice is Arnold Schwarzenegger's and there are some big time action movie effects going on behind them.)
To clarify, the mice do not live "in" the oven. It is not like I have to take out their little furniture, (the match box bed, the thread spool table, etc.) before I turn on the oven. I believe they get nestled into the insulation that lines the stove and move throughout the different parts of the oven.
I know that mice, as portrayed in cartoons and such, are these cute little creatures who immigrate to America, write nasty letters to Santa Claus and run up clocks. They get adopted by Dr. House and Thelma and pilot steam boats, but the ones in my house must not have gotten the memo, because all they do is eat my food and poop all over the place. I moved the stove the other day, took out my shop vac and sucked up all the mice droppings both inside and out. Then I wiped down both areas and disinfected. The inside of the stove was truly disgusting, not only because of the amount of mouse poop in it, but also how close the poop was to the food we prepare for our meals.
I had been relying on my cat to be the primary mouse elimination device. We have found half-eaten mice on several occasions, so I was still optimistic that he could handle the job. This changed the other day when I had left some hot dogs on the stove after the kids had eaten. They were there maybe half an hour and I came out to find one hot dog in a burner hole, half eaten. They had actually climbed out of the stove and tried to make off with a hot dog. They had outstayed their welcome.
The first thing we did was to buy one of those sound generators that is supposed to discourage rodents from taking residence in your home. The directions said it should take 2-3 weeks before it would take effect. We have only had this device a week and a half, but I am very dubious about whether it is going to work, especially after last weekend when one of the mice decided to play Wac-A-Mouse with the cat. The cat was actually sitting on the sink on our kitchen island, so he couldn't have reached the stove unless he jumped the gap. Not impossible, but it would have been an incredible pounce... one for the ages. My wife and I were watching as the mouse stuck its head out of one burner hole, then ducked back in. Then his head would pop out of another hole, and then go back in. He did this for several minutes. It was as if the devious little creature knew it was out of range and decided to go on a full-on taunting campaign. The cat just watched and I hope he was just setting him up for a later kill. At this point it was mouse 1 and Cat 0. Also the sound generator should get a 0 as well seeming it was no more than 6 inches from where the mouse was making his appearances, so how could the sound be that annoying to his kind? Well, we'll see in a few weeks if it is effective.
Next, I decided to buy a trap. The trap I chose is a reflection of how much of a softee I am. I did not get a kill trap, I got one that would capture the little critters. We have a baby and a cat so I wasn't going to go the Decon route, and because of all the positive press they have received, I just don't want to see the little things dead. I had mentioned earlier that this is the second time I had mice in my stove, the other time being when I rented a house in Argyle.
The trap I used in Argyle also trapped mice and I initiated something I called the Mouse Urban Relocation Project. I would wake up in the morning and check the trap. If there was a mouse in it I would take it along to work with me to Glens Falls and let the mouse loose in the parking lot. It was like the tale of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse in reverse. (Or maybe it was more like Survivor.) I heard someone say that a mouse could find its way home from within 2 miles. Well try 15 miles you little bastards! Mwahahaha!
While in Argyle I also tried the glue traps. This was because the mouse problem had escalated into a rat problem. Thanks to the Black Death, rats have had a hard time spinning that public opinion to the positive. (Sorry, NIMH and Ratatouille.) Most movies and TV have not helped their cause, as rats are often the villains in many cartoons. I was more willing to take more lethal actions against them. The only thing I have to say about glue traps is the fact that the directions said there were three easy steps.
1. Peel the plastic off the trap
2. Place the trap in an area where the rodents travel.
3. (Once you have caught the varmint) Dispose of the Trap
Voila! Super easy! They forgot, as I was soon to find out, one of the most important steps.
2.5. Pick up the trap, which contains a rat that is screaming/squealing frantically and put the poor suffering creature out of its misery.
I will never buy glue traps again. One of the clinchers to this was when I was sitting on the couch in my old Argyle house and I saw something move in the kitchen. I jumped up and put a glue trap near the spot I thought they were coming in. Well I checked back in an hour or so and there were four baby rats stuck to the trap. Even though they were rats, they were just little babies... and all of them were squealing. I could hear Anthony Hopkins voice in my head "Tell me about the Rats, Clarice..." That was in the past so let's get back to what happened that made me write up this post in the first place.
I was getting ready to go to work the other morning when I heard squealing coming from the other room. Then my faithful cat came trotting out of the kitchen heading for the cat door to the porch. In his mouth was a mouse. Excellent work, my minion! I went to open the door for him -- it was the least I could do to reward him for his good work. As soon as I went to open the door, however, he let the mouse go. I quickly stepped on it. Don't worry, I did not have my shoes on yet and stepped lightly. All I could see of the mouse was its tail sticking out from under the arch of my socked foot.
I grabbed the tail and lifted him up. I looked him in his beady little eyes and pronounced his sentence. I felt a little like Judge Dredd (I had to get a plug in for Dredd, which seems to have flopped in the theaters, but I thought it was good.): Judge, jury and executioner. "Mouse, you have been found guilty of stealing food and pooping all over the place. Your sentence is death by cat." Despite my saying how I did not want harm the little creatures, at 4:30 am, I was without mercy. I looked at the cat and said, "You started this, you can finish it." I went out to the porch and let the mouse go in front of the cat. He swatted the mouse twice and then the mouse scurried behind a wicker basket that I use to hold old plastic grocery bags. I moved the basket and the mouse ran under a pile of plastic bags. Actually it was a bag that had five or six bags stuffed into it. Where was the cat? I moved the bags and the mouse was gone. I thought I saw something move in the bags and pinched off the top. I gave the cat a very disappointed look and told the mouse in the bag, "The governor called, your sentence has been changed to exile."
I ended up driving to work holding the bag closed. I drive a stick shift which made this even more of a challenge. Thankfully it only takes me 15 minutes to get to work. When I arrived, I took the bags and slowly started emptying them, one by one, looking for the mouse. I got to the last bag and no mouse. Either it was never in the bag or it got out while I was shifting and I did not see it. If it did get out, it will live like a king in my car. Month old cheese doodles, McDonald's residue and all sorts of other goodies are probably under the seats and on the floors.
A mouse was recently caught with the no kill trap that we had bought. Apparently they like kielbasa! We drove it to Super K Mart and let it loose in the back in a grassy area. Good luck in your new home, my little friend. If there are more of your kind in our kitchen, and all of our other preventative measures fail, maybe you will be getting some company soon. I prefer my mice on the big or little screen, at the pet store or in a laboratory. Hopefully this doesn't end up being a Disney movie (cartoon or live action) about a young mouse who gets separated from his family and struggles to beat the odds and finds his way home. Maybe it could be called "The Great Journey Home" or something. Or maybe it could be the "Mouse Hunger Games." (I can only hope it's the latter, and my mouse is from District 5 or elsewhere.) (I also just finished watching the Hunger Games as well.)
