Mice Twice
Monday, November 30th, 2009If you followed Marc and I on Twitter, this is what you would’ve read this past Saturday night and Sunday morning:
Dixie 10:59pm: I thought I heard little squeaks last night and now we don’t know if it’s mice turds or flax on the counter. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!
Dixie 11:07pm: Okay. I think the little bugger(s) have been in my baking cupboard. Yuck! And I’ve baked this week. Yuck! Yuck!
Dixie 11:12pm: And that would explain all the sickness and general poopiness amongst the family the last few weeks, wouldn’t it???
Marc 11:35pm: suddenly feels like he might just be a cat person…
Dixie 11:40pm: AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I just don’t like this one bit. I am a mouth-breather. How am I going to sleep tonight?!
Marc 11:43pm: forget H1N1. How about the Hanta virus?
Marc 7:51am: caught the bastard! I heard the trap go at 4a.m. Eventually I got back to sleep…
Marc 7:54am: …now to dispose of it. Since we switched to the reusable bags for shopping, we no longer have many plastic ones. Hate to waste a Ziploc
Marc 7:55am: I’m going with the Whole Kit and Kaboodle method of disposal, I think. Everything into the garbage: mouse, chocolate chip, trap and all.
Marc 7:56am: after church I will buy MANY traps. I will set them all over the trailer just before we leave to watch the Grey Cup at our friends’ house.
Marc 8:21am: I AM BRAVE! I REMOVED MOUSE FROM TRAP AND RESET TRAP! I AM BRAVE MAN!
Dixie 8:24am: Marc wants me to make love to him because he’s brave. I won’t because he just touched a mouse.
Last night this post linked to Marc’s post about the mouse in the house. And last night our suspicion confirmed that it was really “mice in the hice” (since rhymes are so nice and since mice are so often in rhymes anyway) when we caught another one. We bought four traps yesterday and set them up, along with the one from our neighbour, at strategic points around the house. We set them up before we left for our football game. They were empty when we got home. But we figured it would be in the middle of the night when they’d come out.
And we were right. I think it was just after 1am that I was woken from a sound sleep to a very loud snap sound. And I knew it was from the trap in our master bedroom closet. (I shiver just writing that.) Marc apparently didn’t hear the snap and when I woke him up to tell him, he thought I had just heard shuffling around. He was obviously half asleep because I said, “How am I supposed to sleep knowing that thing is in our closet?!” I’m sure he was snoring by the end of that sentence, while I spent at least a good half hour to forty-five minutes trying to not think about the mutilated mouse two feet from the foot of my bed. (I usually sleep with my toes hanging off the edge of my bed, and even though a sheet and a blanket are tucked under the mattress at the end of the bed, I couldn’t bring myself to hang my toes any closer to that dead mouse.)
I just don’t like creatures and critters of any sort. Let alone in my house. In my bedroom. Walking on my kitchen counter. And having a buffet in my lazy susan baking cupboard. (You all will recall that the one thing I’ve been doing more than anything since arriving in Manitoba is baking. And now who knows what’s been contaminated in there and for how long!) I just don’t like this one bit.
And it makes me really on edge. I mean, a person should be able to have laundry lay on their bedroom floor and not have to worry about mice potentially burrowing in for winter in your corduroy pants! So I picked up everything off the floor on Saturday night (and we’re pretty sure we found one lone mouse poop under the clothes — which meant all of those clothes have been sent for a bleach-filled run in the washing machine). I’d moved some clothes from my side of the bed and found two of the kids little toys — a dinosaur and a grey rhinoceros. When I came back a while later to get into bed I stepped on the grey rhino and let out a pretty big scream. The next morning I actually jumped in the shower when I saw something fall on the shower floor — turns out it was just one of my hair balls (you know, from when you condition your hair). I guess it serves me right for not putting those things immediately in the garbage where they belong, but a person should be able to shower in peace!
So today, now that yesterday’s traveling and busyness is over, we try to disinfect the house. It’s funny. With us being sick for so long, I’ve been trying to keep taps and bathrooms and all the normal things clean. And it could be the baking that’s been making us sick all along. I don’t really want to think of that possibility, though I am going to make an appointment with the doctor in Niverville to get myself checked out finally. I’m assuming it would take a lot more mouse poop to get the Hantavirus. Though at this point, I will be happy just to know I don’t have that. Of course, if the little critters start making gourmet meals for us while we’re sleeping, that could be okay too. I love Ratatouille, but this really puts a whole other spin on it.
To be level-headed for a moment: all this feces has to have been deposited fairly recently. There is simply too much of it for us to not have noticed until now. I fairly sure all your baking has been perfectly safe.
I agree with Marc. But seriously, mice are disgusting!! Hope you get them all caught, although I think trailers are bad for that…..ick! Good luck, Guys! :{
Baking will kill any viruses, so unless the mice were over your cake afterwards then you just have ordinary flu. I hope that is comforting.
With our infestation, we just had to be absolutely disciplined and keep anything edible in sealed containers. That had the added benefit of making them hungry so that they’d visit the traps.
where there is one, there is 15! and I certainly sympathize; I HATE HATE critters too! Now is the time of year the pesty little guys are looking for a warm place for the winter. My sister is currently going thru same dilemma — they are setting up house in her car!! my advice: go to your nearest Peavey Mart to buy some mice repellent (not poison!) Heard Irish Spring soap works.?… My sister’s car has never smelled so irishy clean. lol good luck guys.
tam
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