Oh, dear, a mouse in the house saves nine? That is a mixed thought, a warning, really. I think it is actually said that for every mouse you happen to see, there are nine others just like it loose in your house.
A mouse is one of my totem animals by choice. It sits on my left or right with a turtle, my other totem on the other side. I chose these and cannot recall what I must have been thinking.
A long time ago, in another life, in a trailer house with barely one child and an alcoholic borderline mate. Yes, I chose that, too and I don’t know why. Back to complete that thought – I saw a mouse in the bathroom/laundry room. It was small and cute and probably hungry. I put bread out for it.
Before too much time had passed I could open the kitchen cabinet and the little monsters would pause, raise up their bodies onto their hind legs, gawk at me for a moment, then go back to eating the flour and cereal.
A trailer home, especially one that has been moved once or twice is a really loose fitted shack. Before I moved away with my daughter sans borderline person, the pesky critters would run across the plywood paneling between the ceiling and gap at the tops of the walls.
The mouse problem here started in the basement. I can see why they like it. The game room is down there, lots of junk food remnants, pipes, ducts and dark places to nest and breed, they probably got in on the home ownership boom.
The cat brings the nasty things in from outside, mice, voles, last night – a bird. A tiny bird with a rust colored head. Sometimes, she eats them, sometimes she play with them and lets them go as she heads toward the food dish. She brought one to me in bed the night I made a McGyver light.
A few nights ago, a mouse ran across my knees. There was a sheet and blanket between us. The nerve of that mouse. It visited twice that night. At this point I declare we are infested. They appear beneath the parrot’s cage, the laundry room and scurry under the refrigerator.
We set half hearted snap traps and glue traps. We catch them. One of the people with a y chromosome takes the bodies away. We put down more traps.
Last night I was reading Dead Time by Steven White, nearing the end, bad guy has the shrink and a girl named Amy trussed up with duct tape in a stolen rental car. Something at the edge of my McGyver light’s halo catches my eye.
A grey mouse, silvery, quite healthy looking was sitting on the window sill. I holler ACK, it startles and runs back through the window into the rose bushes.
A well placed ACK brings all the y chromosome people to the ready. I recounted my sighting to my son and husband. I stuffed the purple sheers through the crack in the window and finished my chapter.
If you haven’t read my blogs, I should mention that while I use a sleep med that lets me repair a reading lamp, it does not leave me with any common since, like closing the window all the way.
My major bread winning y chromosome is at work so I dragged my son and his y chromosome out to tour the house. With an arrow, we poked into holes. We found the dryer vent is open for traffic. There is a chink open where some black wires run in and the other holes have woollen socks in them. The open windows, without screens, this is Montana, and the open front door and breeze-way doors I suppose are huge marks for wildlife.
What is the plan? It might be easier to move out. I’m thinking about it. The Stitch in Time saying should have been taken to heart when we saw the first scampering vermin down in the game room. But, NO! I will console myself with the fact that I did not put food out for the first mouse we saw here. That lesson was learned.
But, you know, looking further back, I did snatch up my daughter and I did move into an apartment in another town.
Before we start packing up and giving the house, nearly paid for, to the mice, I think I’ll declare an all out war.
Where can I buy traps wholesale and who has steel wool and window screens?
Till next time, don’t feed the mice!