It's springtime in Brooklyn, and the vermin have returned to us.
May 31, 2005This time, instead of the usual (and heart-stoppingly terrifying) waterbugs, we have mice. Cute, teensy-tiny mice. Adorable, filthy, plague-laden mice. So wee! Really, they wouldn’t wig me out overly, if I didn’t think of the hanta virus every time I spotted one making a run for the dog food. And when they’re sitting still, it’s one thing, but usually they’re rushing past. Scurrying, scuttling—any of these motions cause my limbs to flail about as I squeal girlishly. Why is this, that the tiny running things cause one to scream and scream and scream? Also! The noises. The skritchy scrabbly noises. In the walls. Like they’re playing soccer with the skulls of their ancestors. And sometimes—sometimes we hear them gnawing. Gnawing at the plaster, so they can get out. And eat our brains.
We put out a trap. They ignored it. If I leave the dog food unattended for more than a minute, one of them is making a play for it, but leave a hunk of American cheese out all night and the mice decide to exert some self-control. Or else they’re onto us. Actually the day after we left the trap out, the mice disappeared for a while. Then they came back, because they’re stupid and also, mmm, delicious Iams Mini-Chunks. No rodent can resist it.
Then I had to kill one. The dog was sniffing at something in the corner, and there was a quarter-sized baby mouse tangled up in some wires. It was shaking violently. How could my heart not melt? Poor little disease carrier, I wept. I wept softly, because Henry was a foot away, playing with his Star Wars guys. I tried to free it from its prison. I just wanted it to go back to its hidey-hole, back where it could grow up and live to freak me out. But it wouldn’t budge, and it looked sick, and also, technically, we’re enemies. I had a job to do. So as Henry engaged thrusters and activated the launch sequence and kissed Darth Vader full on the lips (he really likes Darth Vader), I nudged the mouselet into a container, tipped the container into a bag, held the bag as far away from me as I could, and told Henry we had to go outside right then! To throw something out! Something gross!
This got his attention. “What is it? It’s gross? What is it?” And for some reason I said, “Charlie pooped. Charlie pooped in the house, and I have to throw it out right now,” and Henry said, “That’s gross,” and actually followed me out the door and down the stairs, all the while talking to himself about how gross that was, pooping in the house, wow, that is really really gross. And then before I could think about what I was doing, I said to Henry, “Okay, don’t mind what I’m going to do right now,” and lifted the bag high and slammed it against the side of the building (rest in peace, poor little mousie) and if you live in Brooklyn and you were walking past right then and you heard a boy asking his mother, “Why did you hit the house with the poop?” now you know what that meant. You’re welcome.
Reader Comments (71)
We've had an ongoing (read: 4 years) mouse problem in our house (see here, here, here (scroll down).) that I think I may have found the answer to. We've had Orkin out, bait traps w/poison, glue boards, snap traps, copper mesh, steel wool, the whole 9 yards. Then....I read about the peppermint.
Get a bottle of peppermint oil (like at the health food store), put it on cotton balls & creatively strew(?) them about the house. Mice hate the smell of peppermint & will find a more hospitable abode. I honestly haven't seen any since I did this - and my regular sightings/hearings were about 1 every week to 2 weeks.
As for waterbugs and mousies. Eeeep!
Also the spider story: GAH!
But I have one as bad; two months ago, sitting on the couch, I look into the kitchen to see dozens and dozens of tiny gray termites SWARMING up through a hole in the floor. Commence dancing, screaming, spraying, stomping, and wiping up. Gah. That was fun. Our landlord wasn't too thrilled to find out what they'd done to the basement beams, either.
Of course my husband has an even better story about a tarantula migration in his hometown one year...hundreds of the buggers running across the road near his house. eep.
PS: I really enjoy reading your blog.
And then he could tell this to people, until one day when somebody questions his sanity, and boy, that will be the best story.
when i was in high school, i worked at pudgie's famous chicken (awesome uniform tshirts, but i digress). in addition to dogfood, it seems mice like chicken. so anyway, one day we found a mouse...well, his legs, anyway...on the glue trap...and a trail of blood leading to his semi-alive body a good foot away. it was frickin pathetic. and so inhumane. although so was telling you, with that much imagery...but i had to emphasize why to STAY AWAY FROM THE GLUE TRAPS!
i'm all for the WHAP-SMACK quick-killing kindness of the snappy traps. alright, they depress me too. but the mice freak me out. bad. i don't know what's up with that either. but like someone said, try the peanut butter. be careful of your fingers when you apply it though! they don't need any quick-killing kindness, i'm sure.
best of luck from this side of brooklyn!!
p.s. that was the best-worst story, and you did a fine job of telling it.
I wrote about ithttp://www.walkertown.squarespace.com/living-in-walkertown-rocks-do-/2004/9/13/the-little-rat-bastard.html
and
http://www.walkertown.squarespace.com/living-in-walkertown-rocks-do-/2004/9/2/why-in-the-hell.html
There seems I'm missing one named Ralph, Ivan and something but 2 is 'plenty.
Either way, the animal at our house now that seems to be driving me nutso and causing me to lose much sleep is....chicken snakes. I was gonna get a goat b/c goats eat rats and chicken snakes like rats too and not just chickens. Then, I figured a cat would be easier but apparently the pest control guy gets rid of most of the rats and the cats don't wanna live here so that leaves the snakes to wonder around...ack...if it will eve quit raining my husband can bush-hog (do you know what that is) and it will help with the snakes because as of right now, the snakes are chasing rabits and with short weeds the rabbits will move on elsewhere and hopefully so will the snakes...
was it a novel you asked for?
disclaimer: not for use in areas accessible to small children and/or small pets.
Just to add to your trauma - remember in "Little House on the Prairie" (the books, not the Michael Landon version), Pa woke up one night, slapping at his head. When Ma asked him what on earth he was doing, he said, "I dreamed a barber was cutting my hair." Upon closer inspection, they realized his hair HAD been cut -by the razor-sharp teeth of little mice.AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!
Swing away, Merel.
Any other types of traps are useless, useless. It's got to be the old fashioned kind that sell for like a dime apiece in the hardware store. Victor brand, I think.
My husband put on his coveralls that had been hanging in the barn. When he put his hands in the pockets, he started screaming like a little girl and flapping his arms and trying to get out of the coveralls. There were nests of baby mice in both pockets. He shook them out and stomped them, shuddering the whole time.
Here's the story:http://pharmgirl2.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_pharmgirl2_archive.html
Two horrifying critter stories: 1) My friend Kay once reached her arm into a dog food bag, and a rat ran up her arm. 2) When I lived in the country, I slept with the bedroom windows open (no screens) so my cat could jump in and out. One night, she woke me with the low, throaty meow she uses when hunting ponytail holders. I switched on the lamp to find she'd brought a live snake into my bed. My fear gave me some sort of superpower, and I tossed the snake out using the corner of my nightgown as a glove.