Fair warning: if you’ve got a thing about rodents, stop reading now. Not an they’re-so-cute-I-love-them thing. The sort of thing where you try to not vomit when you see singing dancing talking cartoon rats. Altho come to think of it, you probably don’t want to read today’s post if you’re a rodent lover either.
So in addition to the old ragged couch partly blocking the way to the front door and the rocking chair totally blocking the way to my bedroom and the misc boxes and bins and just stuff on the floors of every other room, now I have mice. Not just the felt meeces. (I did find a couple of long-missing meeces, including Sir Percy the Scarlet Pimpermouse.) Nope, real live squeaking scurrying rodents.
And, of course, I have a cat.
In theory, cat deals with mice. Easypeesy. But my wee demon is a modern 21st century house cat, not a rat catcher of old.
So last night was a farce. Me trying to keep my feet off of the floor. And yes, I know that’s silly because they can climb and they’re very unlikely to just run up to a human and start biting toes. I was just so freaked by the first one.
Because there are at least three. (Well, one is dead now, so hopefully down to two.)
Torii loves playing with her felt meeces. And the live action ones were a dream come true. Except with all of the stuff on the floor, she kept losing track. Plus I don’t think she ever understood there was more than one. I guess to her, all rodents look alike, so we’re going to have to talk about systemic racism and recognizing mice as individuals and not just a stereotype. But not right now when we’re trying to kill them.
So she would lose track of the awesome new toy and get frustrated and whimper. (Seriously, she does this pitiful squeaky whimper/cry.) And pace around to all of the places she had seen it (still all just one mouse to her) which was more and more of the house as the night went on.
I would hope that maybe finally the mice realized this is not a rodent-friendly zone and had retreated to the basement. I’d risk doing something reckless, like going to the bathroom, and then another furry little f^cker would run across the hall.
A medium, dark brown mouse. A small grey mouse. A small brown mouse. Probably a mum and two kiddies. I think the kids went exploring and mom came after them.
The medium mouse went through a hole in the kitchen wall. It looks like someone once upon a time was maybe installing an electrical outlet but decided against it. I put a trap with peanut butter just under it. I’d like to know nothing is trapped in the wiring before I seal it.
The small brown kiddo escaped down a vent. I’m hoping it came out another vent instead of dying in the furnace.
Torii caught small grey. She dropped it beside me at 3:30. Probably dead but could be faking or just rigid with fear. I threw it outside. An owl or hawk will take care of it.
Now it’s morning. Torii and I are exhausted, altho she seems pretty happy with how the night went. Her new collar is missing.
It’ll turn up.
My brother is coming this afternoon to help move the old couch to the curb. I need to make veggies for the week, do laundry. I’ll take a couple of peanut butter traps down to the basement. Just a (mostly) typical Sunday.
Except for the bit where I’m trying to wipe out a family that just wants to survive. I do feel bad about it. But I also still feel freaked from last night, from that moment I realized Torii wasn’t batting around a stink bug.
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