Throughout my life there have been many instances where I have had to deal with mice. From early childhood, where we would have a number of mice in our apartment to my present day house and our quest for the elusive 7th mouse. I’ve always been fascinated by them. As a child it was in my parents domain to deal with them. Back in the 50’s if there were such things as Havahart traps, we knew nothing of them. Besides even if we did catch live mice, where would we send them, to another floor in our building? The simplest solution to deal with mice was the snap trap. Put a piece of salami in the trap, set it, wait for the snap and then remove the entire contraption to the incinerator down the hall. My father did all of the dastardly deeds. My only job was to locate the entrance or exit where these rodents had access to our apartment. Personally I didn’t mind the mice, when I knew they were there, it was the sudden appearance of them that usually shook me up.
As I grew older and moved out on my own I became more aware of mice as innocent creatures that just happened to find their way into my apartment/house and I chose not to use deadly force as a way of removing them from the premises. Havahart came to my rescue. My favorite bait was not salami, but American cheese and peanut butter.
When I lived in Manorville in an apartment complex that was part of a golf course and country club, I had the occasion to catch over 20 mice in my apartment over a period of one month. I was never sure if I had caught 20 separate mice, or the one that I caught was just smart enough to find its way home after I released it somewhere on the golf course. It got to a point after about the 15th mouse caught that I decided to tag the mice to see if it was in fact the same mouse I was catching. I used permanent markers and tried my best to mark them on their underbelly through the trap before releasing them. I never did find out if it was the same mouse. They either found a way to remove the marking, since it wasn’t very dark, or word got around that my house was not a secure environment. Needless to say the mouse problem ended or I moved, I’m not sure which happened first.
While explaining this to my mother she wanted to know why after I caught the mice, I didn’t flush them down the toilet? I don’t think she quite understood the reason I was live trapping them. Then again she might have thought I was some sort of sadistic animal torturer that believed in slow death. I tried to explain to her the reason I kept them live was to keep them alive, just not alive in my house. To this day I still don’t think she ever understood.
My son at 15 months gave us quite a shock when I heard him call out one day from our den, “I got mouse! I got mouse!” Both my wife and I ran into the room fearing the worst, that he picked up a mouse that was either dead or getting ready to infect him with bubonic plague. Needless to say he was holding on to the wire attached to my computer keyboard with the computer mouse dangling in the air. We should have known better.
This brings us to our most recent battle of the mice. Right next to our sink there is a drawer that contains our potholders, labels for canning lids, some markers and unused Dobie pads. Within the last 3 weeks we have been noticing some mouse droppings in that drawer. On closer examination we also noticed things like the potholders being a little frayed (as in chewed) and other weird remnants of food, such as a peach pit in the drawer. The fact that a peach pit in the drawer in December and mouse droppings was enough to clue us in to our uninvited guests. We put a Havahart trap in the drawer and in the cabinet under the sink and proceeded over the following weeks to collect mice on the average of one every two days. Because of the placement of the traps, we tended to set them off ourselves just by opening and closing cabinets nearby. All mice were caught in the act, overnight while we were sleeping. After catching 6 in total and removing them to different locations around our neighborhood (all open lots) we again set our traps. The seventh mouse was quite a formidable one to catch. It managed to leave its droppings around the traps to let us know that it existed. It even was smart enough a few times to get the food from the traps prior to tripping them. As a storyteller, I was hoping this mouse would be attached to free wishes, since it was so smart. Time ended up being on our side and it was finally caught and released. If it was going to give me wishes, it did not make its intentions known. We never knew how these mice got into our house, or how long they had been residents. I’m pretty sure the nest is/was behind our washing machine. I did point out to my family that our ex-cat, Rinny, was always enamored with our washing machine for no apparent reason. I originally thought she just liked seeing her reflection in the shiny siding, but now I’m beginning to wonder. Maybe she was the only thing keeping the mice at bay and it took this long since her demise over 4 months ago before they finally gained enough confidence to come forward and explore.
We haven’t caught or seen evidence of another one for over a week but are still reticent to put things back in the drawer. So we make sure the traps are set each night and continue our vigil, but somehow I think 7 is a good number and hopefully we’ve seen the last of them.
A new record was established. As of 2/6/10 we are at 26 and counting. We’ve caught at least one a day for the past 3 weeks. The mice are finding their way to the third shelve of a free standing IKEA shelving unit in our basement. The walls nearest it are solid concrete. There is no evidence of mice on either the top shelf or the ground. My best guess is that they are being beamed in from some alien spaceship.