A Mouse in the House

This week Tricia called me to the kitchen.  "Kyle," she called, "Come listen.  Either something in the trash is settling or there is something alive in there."  We keep our trash can and our compost bucket in the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink.  I walked over and listened, but I'm kind of deaf and couldn't hear anything.  I opened the cabinet door, pulled out the trash can, lifted the trash bag out...  And a mouse promptly jumped out of the bag and onto my leg.

It got a little crazy.  The mouse jumped off of my leg and ran away off into our house.  After careful checking I found that the mouse got into our house from a hole in the cabinet where the water line to the refrigerator comes through the wall.  I made a trip to the store and bought some glue traps.  I put one glue trap baited with a spoonful of peanut butter right under the hole.  The next morning I peered into the cabinet door only to find the peanut butter gone, the glue trap moved, but no mouse!

Of course this means war.  I pulled out the old school mouse traps, baited them with pecans covered with peanut butter, placed them in the same spot and in the morning was rewarded with the following sight:

Oh Happy Day! (not for the mouse)

Experience has shown me that where there's one, there's more, so I rebaited everything and will continue to rebait until I stop catching them.

Reloaded

Once I've stopped catching mice in the traps, I've purchased some steel pot scrubbers and I'll jam them into the holes where the mice have been coming in.

Kryptonite for mouse entry

A mouse-proof house yields a very happy spouse.