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November 07
The bitter chill has brought the mice and their turds into our home in previously unseen numbers this fall. So far I’ve snap-trapped eight of them. Granted, we live on the Westside where homes are as porous as Swiss cheese, but with their increased numbers they also seem to have become more brazen. We’ve found trails of dark turds across the back of our counter like hyphens in a long, invisible sentence for weeks. They found a way to get into our stash of fast-food condiments and turned the mustard (and ONLY the mustard) packets into a fine foil confetti that glinted amongst their myriad poos in the bottom of the drawer. The coup de grace was a crowning turd left atop a translucent peel of garlic in a hanging wire basket that it could only have reached with a leap of supermousean strength.
We have neighbors who collect these vermin in “humane” traps and take them out to Palmer Park to deposit them in the wilds where they almost certainly freeze to death, become prey, or move into the walls of the residents of the neighborhoods surrounding Palmer Park. I’m not sure that’s any more humane than the mere five seconds it takes for them to stop twitching and scratching at the hard wood floors after the trap has snapped their necks, noses just millimeterss from the little chunks of cheddar cheese dotted with a few spots of blood atop the clever blonde wood plank they so eagerly walked.
Forgive me, Mouse Gods, but until someone invents a mouse diaper or litter box I’ll be putting out snap-traps and sleeping soundly in the assurance of the turd free counter top that will greet me in the morning after I hear that wicked crack and brief scratching at my floors.
I tried, for a while, tossing them to the fox who live in an old country sewer tunnel that runs beneath our house, but they apparently like live prey. I’d find their dessicated bodies like little rugs in the gutter days later.
“Have a happy time in the underlife, mousy,” Ursen says as I bag them in old grocery sacks and place them in their garbage tomb
Indeed.
Posted by: darksandal in Food and Drink | Permalink
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14 Responses to “Mousassination”
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“We’ve found trails of dark turds across the back of our counter like hyphens in a long, invisible sentence …”
Evocative! Wait a second, are you a professional writer?
Perhaps the mousies are using morse code to deliver a message.
Having grown up in a house that entertained mice and rats, I hate the little devils. Only problem is I’m not good at setting the snappy traps. I get them set and then put them down gently and the trap always goes off and stings my fingers. I think my fear that they will snap sets them off. Any tips on how to set them pain free (for me) or is the stinging fingers divine punishment in advance?
Sarah: Get the traps that have the fake swiss cheese trap. They’re much easier to set and spring much more easily. Put you bait in (cheddar always works for me) and then hold the trap by the sides of the plank on the end opposite the trap. Pull the trap back and hold it down against the plank with your thumb. Even if it you let go of it, your fingers won’t get snapped. Now move the arm into place in the slot on the fake swiss cheese bait holder and ease your thumb off the trap until it pushes the bait holder up into place. Move your thumb off the trap completely, still holding the plank by its sides. Place it gently near mouse trail. Turn off lights and remain still. Wait ten minutes. Hear snap. Listen for horrifying reflexes to stop. Bag and toss.
I don’t think ‘turd-free counters’ is unreasonable and if the Mouse Gods are fair and just, surely they would have to concede, at least, that point.
Just get a cat at the Humane Society.
Uh, then I’d have to scoop clumps. Huh uhn.
You’re the Stalin of the rodent world. I don’t know how you can live with yourself.
Prepositional Labyrinth
I could just build a micro abattoir/incinerator into your countertops, but then you’d have to empty the ashtrays.
I found 3 exhausted baby mice in my sink this morning. They are too adorable looking to put out in the snow or otherwise mistreat. What should I do with them? Am I mad? I am currently feeding them half and half and wheat crackers, but I’m not sure if I’m doing them or me any favors in the long run.
It’s sad to kill the mice, BUT if you do, I’ve found that smearing peanut butter at the back of the trap where the spring is does an awesome job of crushing their skulls. Duct-taping a small razor blade onto the trap is more humane, it justs chops the head right off. As for the baby mice, you can raise them in an aquarium until the summer, then let them go. Or you can just put them in a sling shot and aim it at a wall. Take pictures if you do.
Thank you Eggplant, your advise made me cry, but thank you all the same.
Update on the mice: I put them in a trash can as a holding area until I decided what to do with them and they all escaped…