Of Mice and (Wo)men

Dear East Meadow,

A couple of months ago, each of my two kids reported hearing gnawing sounds in their respective closets. My husband inspected and found nothing, mostly because of the giant piles of clothing that fell on him when he opened the door. He suggested they clean their closets and then he would try again. After the laughter died down, they went back to whatever electronic gadgets they were using and ignoring us.

Every now and then one or the other mentioned hearing something but again we found nothing. A neighbor suggested that a recent house fire across the street could be the source of the mouse. Then I began to find telltale signs of some sort of critter in the house. I freaked out and told my husband it was time to call in the professionals. My husband freaked out at the cost and said he wanted to try and solve the problem himself (read: cheap). 

I promptly dispatched my husband to Home Depot. Sending him to Home Depot is risky business. He disappears for hours, comes home with many bags, then proceeds to pile the items on what used to be our dining room table. Rumor has it that it is made out of some type of wood. When he returned four hours later, he had four light bulbs, bleach spray for mildew and two plastic mousetraps.

"Are you going to interrogate the mice under heavy lights and then BLEACH them?" I yelled. "What the heck were you doing at Home Depot all that time?"

"I was looking around," he mumbled. "I asked some guy and he said these mousetraps would work." I was not happy; I wanted him to come home with some sort of He-Man industrial strength mouse killer, not $2 plastic traps.

The traps sat on the so-called dining room table for a while, forgotten in the pile of other "projects." No mouses were heard from. I started referring to them as "mouses," because I was starting to doubt we even had one, and using that word made it less scary and almost cute.

One night my dog ran over to the pantry and started barking her head off. We investigated and found that something had been in the pantry and had ripped holes in packages and left a mess on a bottom shelf. The dog must have seen the mouse making its escape. This was becoming serious. We moved all the food out and my husband installed the mousetraps, complete with little cubes of cheddar cheese.

Every morning we checked and there was no change, just a mousetrap complete with a little piece of cheddar cheese. My husband decided to put a mousetrap in my son's room, which is next to the pantry. Every morning, no change, just cheese in a mousetrap. Then, one morning, there was a change. NO cheese in the mousetrap, but no mouse! This was starting to become personal.

I was then home recuperating from foot surgery and off my feet for a few weeks. One afternoon, I was hobbling down the hallway when a little gray blur zoomed past me. I could not believe my eyes...had I just seen the mouse? I didn't yell "Eek! A mouse," but let's just say I did because this is a family newspaper. I called my dog over but she wasn't interested. I was absolutely sickened. We really did have a problem with mouses! The pretense was over. Something was IN MY HOUSE that did not belong there.

My husband went back to Home Depot and returned with the big guns...two more $2 plastic mousetraps. A friend suggested applying peanut butter instead of cheese, because the mouse would get stuck in the peanut butter instead of just grabbing the cheese and escaping. We were skeptical but decided to try it. A couple of days later, my husband came running into the bedroom yelling "I caught the mouse! I caught the mouse!" Sure enough, there in the trap was a tiny gray mouse. I couldn't believe he actually caught it.

The peanut butter did the trick! I went into the bathroom and was surprised to find myself tearing up. I actually felt bad for the mouse. My husband thought I was being ridiculous but had it been alive I would've insisted he set it free, outside where it belonged, not in my house.

He was very proud of himself, and happy that the entire problem had been solved for less than $10. I was still unsettled.

"Listen," I said, "since you have the mousetraps, why not set them out for a couple of days to make sure there aren't any more mouses?" He agreed. That night I heard a rustling sound in my bedroom. I woke my husband up and he set a mousetrap. (Did I mention that we used Trader Joe's organic chunky peanut butter? No cheap stuff for MY mouses!) The next morning, I almost passed out when we saw another mouse in the trap! I told my husband it was time for an exterminator.

"If we catch one more, we'll call someone. Maybe there was only two." Reluctantly I agreed. The next day, at 2 am, I was sleeping and suddenly heard a loud snap. I shot out of bed and so did my daughter. There in the kitchen we found victim #3.

Horrified does not begin to describe how she and I felt. We HEARD it happen. I couldn't go back to sleep that night.

The next day I was cooking at the stove when I suddenly heard "squeak!" I froze, spatula in hand. "Oh my god, a mouse!" I was all alone in the house. "Squeak!" I got goosebumps. Was I about to confront one in my own kitchen? I turned and suddenly heard it again. Then I realized it was me, bumping against the handle on the oven door!

One day later we found our fourth murdered mouse in the kitchen. I went online and did some research, and I learned that exterminators usually use one of two methods: poison or traps. I will not use poison because of my dog; one article actually said that if you use poison to kill a mouse you might as well put some poison in your pet's dish because of the risk to your pet. 

Also, a mouse can ingest the poison, take it back to its hiding place, and then die, leaving behind a nasty smell that is nearly impossible to trace and will linger forever, giving the mouse the upper hand (paw?) in the battle. That leaves traps, which is basically what we are doing right now, only theirs are a lot more expensive and high-tech. So, for now, we are going to keep setting our peanut butter and plastic mousetraps and see if we catch any more mouses. I have a feeling we are going to lose the battle and need the pros eventually, but for now we are armed and ready.