Not a mouse in the house...

Not anymore!!

I can only hope I don't jinx myself by putting it in writing, but it appears we are once again mouse free.  This story begins on Friday the 13th (actually, it was the 15th), an unlucky night.  Thomas and I were watching a wonderfully cheesy action flick, a movie from our local video rental - Mom & Pop's netflix queue.  Thomas suddenly paused the movie and urgently whispered, "Look."

There darting across the floor was a little gray mouse.  I didn't shriek or anything like that.  We watched for a moment, and then Thomas suggested that there wasn't anything great to trap with it.  Of course, we wouldn't have been successful trying to trap a mouse in a pint glass, but it was the thought that counts.  As he watched where it went, I watched it go a different way....oh wait, there are more than one.

The next morning we put the traps out (I had to get them out of the tin shed, otherwise we would have put them down right away).  Four traps with peanut butter were distributed throughout the house. 

Sunday morning, I was up before Thomas because I had to go in to teach a class before mass, and I found full traps.  We caught four mice in five traps.  Gratefully, Thomas took care of emptying and resetting the traps.  Monday morning, there was one more mouse.  Tuesday morning, there was nothing; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday...nothing! 

Now Friday morning, Thomas noted that his computer chair really stunk.  He found the Febreeze, but it just didn't really do the trick.  An open window didn't help either.  We joked about what he'd eaten that had fouled up the room so permanently, but it wasn't that.  I found a mouse stretched out behind the file cabinet.  I have no idea what it got into, as we haven't put out poison.  I used a couple pieces of cardboard to scoop and remove it.  Amazing, the room smelled so much better after that!

Thomas has a theory that Bob the Mouse went missing.  A search party was sent after him, and though they found the peanut butter before they could retrieve Bob, the rest of the mice must have gotten the message.  Go in that place, and you don't come back!

We've cleaned and bleached and vacuumed.  Gratefully, they were tidy and hungry mice.  They went straight for the peanut butter and did not leave a trail of chocolate sprinkles all over the house!