The Saga of a Mouse in Kim’s House

Posted by kim on December 1, 2010

Many of you long-time readers will know that I’m not only scared of dogs, but I’m also deathly afraid of mice!  So when my daughter Macy spotted a mouse in our basement on Monday morning, I was petrified and posted the following status update on my Facebook page:

There is a mouse in my house, and I’m a bit freaked out.

I gotta love my friends that commented leaving me some bona fide and some outlandish advice on how to catch a mouse, as well as making me laugh along the way. The comments were too funny not to share…

Mookie from 94Rock: Is it in a box? Is it near a fox?

Wade Tonkin: Or on a Train… in the Rain?

Eric Nagel: Go get a cat. A cat with a bat. Yes a cat with a bat will rid it like that!

Wade Tonkin: Isn’t it great having smart assed friends in your time of need?

Kim Rowley (me): It’s in the basement behind the fridge. I wish it was outside jumping off a bridge.

Kim Rowley: Smart assed friends would be even better if they made house calls to kill mice.

Chris: Rat bait will speed up the wait.

Eric Nagel: Sorry, it’s a bit far for a house-call. Get these, they work great.

Kim Rowley: I have sticky traps out, but I’m thinking a trip to Walmart may be in order to stock up on poison and traps.

Wade Tonkin: the only problem with the poison is that they die in inconvenient places and can stink things up a bit – at least with the traps you can get rid of them.

Rexanne: Awwwwww poor little mousie

Richard: As an attorney representing the mouse I would advise not hurting my client but discussing a deal in this day & age.. maybe a financial settlement can be worked out or a plea bargain..no one has asked my client why she and 3 little ones are …under the fridge they have no home& it is cold out..she is doing the best she can to raise them..maybe they could be moved to a lab she could get a job as a lab mouse& the 3 little ones could stay till she finds a new fridge to live under..bringing in a cat will only inflate the situation and make mouse my client nervous & cat litigation papers will be drawn up..Thank you for your cooperation in this matter..yours truly, Mickey Mouse/entertainer/attorney at mouse law.I can be reached at 1-800-save-mouse..Magic Kingdom..

Richard: and for all of those ones that were injured and killed during the “Glue Trap Wars”..we shall not forget.(taps playing in the background)..and for getting stuck on a glue trap and having to pull your insides out to try and get free..to warn other comrades..”The Distinguished Medal Of Cheese”…is given to..private mousetrap.”Private mousetrap now wears skates because she has no feet”so could she skate to the front of the podium please& kindly receive her medal”(applause)..

Shannon: I highly recommend this method. It has worked each and every time that I set it up. Make your own humane mouse trap.

Kim Rowley: Richard, are you implying that there may be more than one?! I’m already freaked out.  And sorry Shannon, but I want the sucker/s dead.

Deborah Carney: We have a couple of cats you can borrow…

Richard: according to research they have 9 or more babies at a time..a litter..are very smart.have been around since the dinosaurs..are very survival minded..can chew through concrete..can eat anything..and can grow to be over 20lbs..there are over 4 billion rats and mice on Earth at the moment..they could rise up and take over if they wanted to..but shh. don’t tell them….squeak!…

Lorie: Kim, go to Walmart and get those things you plug in your wall and they transmit a sound to scare off mice and bugs but humans don’t here the sound. I haven’t had a mouse since we put 2 of them in last year. They really do work. I have one plugged in each end of my house. Thanks Lorie! I found a commercial strength Ultrasonic Rodent Repeller to buy!

Sabrina Malone: Lorie’s idea is the most practical and humane. She’s probably right. That being said, if it were me, I’d leave the house, call an exterminator asking for an emergency removal, and if they couldn’t come right away, I’d book a hotel room for the night. I realize this sounds extreme and wimpy, but I’d go to almost any expense to avoid staying in the house with a mouse running free. Let us know how it goes…and I’ll be praying for you! I appreciate the prayers Sabrina!

Kim Rowley: Now I’m really freaking out because the mouse is no longer behind the fridge and not stuck on any traps – he could be anywhere! And it’s white out – winter snow advisory, so I can’t trek to Walmart!

Jen Goode: peanut butter.. catch them with peanut butter

Brian: General rule of thumb. There is usually about 30 mice to every one you see. Exception to the rule could be that this single mouse ran in a door while it was open or was carried in the house in a box or something. First thing I’d do is try to figure out where it came from and look for droppings around the house. I recommend the trap with the entrance on both sides with the clear plastic top so you can see if you caught anything. You put bait in the middle and they go in from either side to get it but cant get out. Then you can just lift up the lid with a long handle and you don’t have to get near it. If it were me I would bite it’s head off and spit the head where the mouse entered the house. Think about it, would you go in a house where someone’s decapitated head was? I did carry in some boxes from the garage to the basement, so I may actually be the one that let the bugger in!

Brian: R u going to use my advice to rid your house of mice? Use the trap I suggested, I’m sure you’re house isn’t too mouse infested. Put it up next to a wall, like behind the fridge or in the hall. When you catch the little critter,kill her and hope she hasn’t had a litter. Biting its head off might make you think eww, but if it was big enough it would do it to you. Note: Brian is the brother of one of my best friends.  She used to tell me not to laugh at him when we were little or he’d never shut up!

Sabrina Malone: ‎@Brian – you are incorrigible! Can’t you see this mouse thing is serious business? Made worse by the fact that she’s snowed in with it! Updated advice in light of the blizzard. I’d go knocking on my neighbor’s doors asking if their husbands felt up to mouse hunting – while I hung out at their place drinking tea and pretending to be social. Then I’d return to my home once he’s caught it…and looked for any others. Keep us posted. (And I’m still praying for you.)

Brian: Ok, the reason it came in is because it’s cold outside. Open the doors and windows to make it just as cold inside as it is outside. Build a fire on your patio and put some cheese by the fire. When it/they go outside slam the door. Then simply throw a bucket of water out of the window to put out the fire. I have an extra bedroom for the night if you don’t have any firewood.

Stephanie Lichtenstein: Ok this happened to me in NY and I cried sobbed actually. Courtney my roommate thought I was going to move back to Miami when it happened.

Karen Hoxmeier: I’ve had to deal with 2 mice in my house this year. Regular snap traps scare me. I’m afraid I will get my finger. And poison isnt good because it will eat it and go die. You’ll have a mouse rotting somewhere and have to find it by smell. Get these and use peanut butter as bait. Just a tiny bit spread onto the trap in the back. They’ve always worked well for me. I tried the glue ones a few years ago. Caught one by one foot and it was disgusting and very sad. Better that they just die quickly.

Stephanie D: I would say to get a cat, but our cat has been bringing us many gifts: mice, dead and alive, sometimes two a day. She also brought in a bunny 1/3 her size, a butterfly and a dove. I think she’s cleaned up the neighborhood. I’m quite tired of disposing of her offerings. The sticky traps are OK, but you have to finish off the mouse. Maybe rent-a-cat?

Macy (my daughter): Well I believe all credit goes me, I’m the one that saw it & is brave enough to go down there & check on it!! P.S. I was down there for not even ten minutes and my mom is yelling down the stairs “Macy you Okay?” like it ate me or something lol

Stephanie Lichtenstein: Well did you find it and most importantly did you kill it @Macy?

Macy: Well when I looked behind the fridge it wasn’t where I saw it this morning, so no I didn’t kill it, but I put sticky traps with cheese on the ends on both ends of the fridge!

James Martell: I think you should name him (or her).

Stephanie Lichtenstein: Kill it!

Wade Tonkin: My rule is always to let critters exist – if they stay outside. Once they come in – they played a bad hand and they’re toast.

Tuesday morning, and the mouse opera continues…

Kim Rowley: Mickey is still at large this morning, and I’m home alone petrified. At least yesterday I was babysitting my baby niece who I could have sacrificed to the mouse lords. Let’s hope my sister doesn’t read this!

Stephanie Lichtenstein: I will not be at ease until this is taken care of!

Kim Rowley: Okay, I just bought 12 (yes, twelve), one of every kind of mouse houses available at Walmart. Mickey is going down.

Macy: Well it is now killed, I was walking down stairs to put out the traps & saw it stuck by its tail to the sticky traps & could probably get free, so I took a knife & stabbed it to death

Stephanie Lichtenstein: Good now I can sleep at night! Hopefully we can, too!

I slept a bit better last night although when my radio alarm went off this morning, I jumped as I thought it sounded like a scratching mouse. We still set out all the traps just in case Mickey has friends, or Heaven-forbid Minnie had babies.