Mouse Games

Ok - so I wasn't going to share this - but since it has made itself a part of our lives and has consumed us the past couple of days - I'm going to air it.

When we first moved into our house I noticed mouse traps in the basement and in the kitchen. We asked the landlord and she said they think that they took care of the problem. So it was a shock to me when I had noticed some mouse droppings on the kitchen floor. I went to the store looking for some form of a mouse trap. I couldn't buy the bait because of the kids, so I thought I would go a little more humane and get a plastic box that they can't get out of and then take them outside and release them.

Within hours of setting up the boxes and teasing them with the peanut butter - there he was. I looked at him to get an idea of his markings, mainly out of curiosity, maybe a little weird but oh well. This one had a very distinct crooked tail and was brown with gray on bottom. He had the Biggest black eyes and stared right at me.

Ok -so there it was, I walked him to the back alley and dumped the box - he quickly ran away.

No more than 2 hours later, I heard the box again. Oh, we had another mouse, gross. I promptly took him outside and came back in and placed the box back in the corner.

The next morning, I checked the boxes. Both were occupied by our soon to be evicted uninvited guests. But this one looked just like the first one with the crooked little tail and the other may or may not have looked similar to the second one. Very suspicious. So this time I walked them a little farther away and let them go across the street in the boulevard amongst some bushes.

Just to be sure I laid the boxes back down. Much later that night (right before bed) I heard the noise. I checked the box - Two little mice in one box! Hey - these guys look an awful lot like the 2 I keep releasing. I'm going to research this. First of all, my house is not in any condition that I would typically think that they would inhabit, so I went to a pest control website and found that even if your house is clean, they can still select your home as their habitat as long as they can get in from the outside. Well since our home is no younger than 60 years old, there is a very good chance that they are climbing in somewhere and at least getting in to the basement. They can get into any space that is no bigger than a dime. What? There is no way I would be able to block all of the little cracks from outside. Then I wanted to know, Do these little guys typically return to their habitat like a regular house animal - Sure enough, they do - it was recommended to release them more than 500 feet away from the house.

Ok -no more games, we went for a drive. I drove 2 miles away at 10 o'clock at night in my jammies and released them in a park. If they come back this time - We're going to use the big guns! (bait)

I was happy to wake up this morning and find the boxes empty. No droppings to be found. Finally. I have scrubbed my kitchen with lysol and bleach and just to be sure I used the hose from the vacuum in the cupboards and under the appliances. If this doesn't let them know they are not welcome - then I'm just going to get mean!
And if this wasn't bad enough - Chandler asked if we could keep him. "He's so cute mom, can we keep him? " I don't think that the look on my face even warranted a reply, but just to be sure - NO.