An ongoing Saga
I have a mouse in my pantry. He’s not the first, nor will he be the last. I live beside a field with hundreds of acres of forest around me. I have a bug dude who specializes in wildlife and keeps the five mouse baits outside my house well armed. But this is an older home with gaps and crevices, and you guessed it, the occasional mouse.
The first time I had mice, I was pretty well equipped with Tupperware containers, but I didn’t understand the habits of mice. I ended up deep cleaning the pantry twice within a month, throwing away a lot of boxes and bags of food. You see, I got a live trap and dutifully let the two or three mice I’d catch loose in the woods. When I told Bug Dude that I’d trapped thirteen mice, he laughed and told me that I’d more likely caught the same mice over and over again.
I’m more wise about the ways of mice now. Most of my bags of chips and boxes of spaghetti and such live in plastic bins. I get careless now and again when the mice don’t appear. Hence, I have had mice in the pantry for the last couple of weeks.
I have a system. My light switch is outside the pantry, so I switch it on, wait a few seconds, and then open the loud squeaky door. This gives the mice plenty of warning and time to take cover. However, LG 1 (the first little guy) dashed out of the pantry one day while I screamed and dodged him as he flew by.
I saw him run under the wooden shelves on the other side of the kitchen. It’s a beautiful antique piece with a four inch clearance underneath that regularly houses lots of dust and clumps of dog hair. A great spot for a mouse.
My thrill at having him out of my pantry was short lived because I realized that now he had access to the whole house. Not ideal. So, I used card board boxes to block the bottom of the pantry door and set a folded card table across the doorway to the rest of the house. My back door leads out to the screened porch, so I opened it hoping LG1 would find the easy way out.
To be sure he did, I fetched the vacuum cleaner and attached the small motorized piece I use for the stairs. It was small enough to fit under the shelves and made a lot of noise. Surely, LG1 would head for the door.
Since no one was here to see where the terrified mouse went while I reached the vacuum under the shelves, I had no clue where he was. He could have just as easily fled beneath the deep freezer. I left the back door open and other options blocked for several hours. Then it occurred to me that having the mouse in the pantry might be preferable to having him running around the rest of the kitchen. At least he would be confined and leave a trail.
I figured there were two mice. You see, I had cleaned up mouse mess left on top of my Tupperware containers, found a loaf of bread on a top shelf that I didn’t realize was there, and tried my best to take away all the easy pickings. I noticed that he hadn’t gotten into a bag of tapioca flour, so I used it as bait of sorts. The bag had two holes the next day instead of one, so probably two mice got into it.
The unexpected benefit of the bag of tapioca flour is that it has a fine consistency like powdered sugar. So when the mice penetrated the bag, it went poof. There was flour all over that side of the pantry. How is that a benefit? I could also see little foot prints everywhere they went. So I put the bag of flour in a zip lock, cleaned up the mess, and tried again.
Meanwhile, I had gone to the hardware store and gotten a large sticky trap, which I think is inhuman, so I set it out but didn’t put bait on it. (Yeah, I know.) I also got a live trap and a can of spray foam to reseal the gaps around the pantry floor.
Now, spray foam is a special substance that starts small and expands to fill the gaps. I’ve used it before, but apparently I was better at following instructions those other times. I highly recommend wearing the rubber gloves. I had spray foam all over my hands and all over my pretty press on nails painted in the sparkly pink color Princesses Rule. My hands felt like sand paper for a couple of days, and Princesses may Rule, but spray foam clings to everything like super glue. Bye bye nails.
One day I noticed a horrible smell coming from my sink. I don’t generally put food down my drain since I don’t have a disposal. I cleaned out the sink, but the smell didn’t go away. I poured some of Mrs. Meyer’s cleaner down the drain. Instead of smelling like something died, it smelled like something died with a lemony scent.
LG1 came to mind, and I looked up whether mice would go down a drain. Turns out they do that. I boiled a couple of pots of water and poured them down, reasonably sure I’d found LG1.
Meanwhile, in the pantry, LG2 continues to enjoy the tapioca flour. He tracks it all over the red lids to my Tupperware. I broke out the live trap and put in the mouse scented attractor I bought at the hardware store. The next morning, I saw tiny white tracks all over the top of the trap, but no mouse inside.
I cleaned up the mess, put the tapioca flour in yet another zip lock, and placed shredded cheese in the trap. This morning, well, I’ll just show you the picture. Aren’t the little tracks cute?
I’ve debated what I’ll do with LG2 if he makes his way into the live trap. The instructions say to release them at least two miles away. There’s a nature preserve down the road that would make a nice home for him. Or, I have a friend with a yard full of cats. Either choice comes with the terrifying proposition of putting a live mouse in my car with me.
The saga may well end with a loud snap and a moment of silence. How will I make that choice? I think I’ll draw the line at buying a new bag of tapioca flour for him.