there’s a mouse in my house

and a wocket in my pocket.

I wish that this was just a rhyme and not really my life. Damn it. But there really is a mouse in my house. I say mouse in hopes that it is only one, but I’m not so sure. There might actually be several of the bastards. It is really hard to tell because he seems to move so quickly and be in several places at once.

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I first encountered our little furry friend about a week ago. I opened up the kitchen cupboard under the sink where we store some food and there he was staring up at me. Honestly it scared the crap out of me. I slammed the door in his face, took a deep breath and then opened it up again. What I then discovered was this little bastard had a liking to hamburger buns and had eaten halfway through a pack of them. And then pooped on everything else in the cupboard. I promptly threw everything that was open away and cleaned up his feces. Not much more I could do at this point since I didn’t have any traps.

A few days later he moved out of the kitchen cupboard (seemingly because I had killed his food supply) and into the living room so he could keep Arlie company. She loves that little guy. He pops out at any given time from behind the bookshelf and then scrambles across the room to behind the television. He likes to stop about midway (when Arlie is screaming at him) and stare, do a little giggle, then continue on his mission. The creepiest part if that he squeaks as well. Ewww, gross.

Finally, last night we spied the bastard running across the kitchen counter. He ended up cowering under the spice rack where I could see him. I then attempted to catch him in a cup. This failed. He jumped off the counter and scrambled underneath where I couldn’t get to him. You’ve got to give him credit, he is pretty damned fast.

Now it has come to this. I’m going to have to kill the bastard.

I went to the hardware store in search of a mouse trap. I found several different options.

1. Traditional mouse traps – these break their necks (according to the hardware store guy). I remember using these before and hearing screams. Decided not to go with this.
2. Plastic traps – this is a little box that triggers and catches the live mouse inside a tube. Seems pretty humane, but didn’t look like it worked so great. Plus it was the most expensive. Ok, so I guess I don’t care about being humane where a few extra quid are at stake. Peta would be ashamed.
3. Glue traps – I’ve heard stories of how the mice get trapped and then chew their feet off to get out of these. Not sure if they were true, but the hardware store man seemed to be enthusiastic about these (and they were cheap) so I went with this. My only issue being how to get rid of the mouse once you do trap it. His suggestion – step on it. Hmmm. I guess we’ll cross that hurdle when we get to it. I was thinking more along the lines of plastic bag whack across a pole for a quick death. Arlie wasn’t that into the idea.

The other thing that I have purchased – because obviously there had to be some gadget involved here – is a sonic mouse repeller. This thing is supposed to drive the little rodents crazy and make them run off. Suicidal mouse brigade? I guess so.

Wish us luck in killing that damned pest out of my house! BTW – if Roley was around then none of this would be happening.