ARGH!!
I saw a (the?) mouse again in my kitchen today -- not once, not twice, not thrice, but FOUR TIMES. All while the kids were sleeping and it was quiet in the house. I am seriously freaking out you guys. I'm scared to go into my own kitchen!!
I did some more investigating and found a drawer that had contained some chocolate, which had all been eaten up and the wrapper shredded. So I cleaned out that drawer completely. And I wiped down the counters a bit more. But the weird thing is that the part of the counter where I've been SEEING the mouse is nowhere near that drawer! And where I've seen it, there's plenty of other food it could be getting into so easily -- boxes of cereal, plastic bags with bread in them, even on a couple of occasions unwrapped bread (that had just been baked and was cooling). So wtf?
Also I did some googling and found that supposedly a) you mostly see mice in early spring and early fall, and b) you'll never see a mouse if you have a cat. HA. So here it is the middle of summer and I just got a freaking cat! Who btw was lying at his leisure on the kitchen floor, just chillin', this last time when I came in and saw the mouse disappearing back behind the stove again. So clearly this cat is not doing fuck-all for me, which is irritating. I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the fact that I use that pine pellet litter stuff. Maybe if I used clay litter it would smell more cat-y and scare the mice off? Ugh!
Anyway, I called Brian who lives upstairs and he came and looked and seemed to feel that a) the hole I sorta-kinda plugged up last week doesn't go to the outside but into the basement and b) that might not be how they're getting in anyway and c) there's no point trying to plug up the holes because they'll always find another way in, and therefore d) the only solution is to never have any food out of any kind. Which, I'm sorry but that just isn't feasible, even if I were a WAY better housekeeper than I am. And anyway, the chocolate in the drawer wasn't left out! It was in a DRAWER!
But Brian did say that he would get some traps and put them in the basement. He claims that he had some trouble with mice about a year ago and he put some sticky traps around in his place and the problem stopped. I hate the idea of sticky traps because it's a slow painful death for the mice, but otoh if Brian's going to deal with them then I'll live with it. Also he said he'd try to get some of that spray-in insulation foam stuff, but he wouldn't be able to come by with it until Thursday night. And honestly I don't know if I can wait that long, you guys. I mean today is just ONE day and I saw a mouse in the same place FOUR TIMES, including once after I had wiped the counter all down and cleaned up a whole bunch!
So maybe I'll manage to get some of that foam stuff tomorrow. There's a hardware store in Harvard Square. Then I just have to figure out how to get it into that space behind the stove....
Seriously I am terrified of my kitchen right now, you guys. And I'm really upset about it all. I love this house. And I hate how I feel about it right now. :( :(
edit I meant to add that part of the problem is my lower cabinets aren't sealed closed in the back -- they're kind of open to the walls behind them, it's hard to describe. So once a mouse comes in from the basement he can basically get into any of those cabinets and thus into any drawer. I guess I can blame the previous owners for this. But it doesn't seem like something easy to fix....
I did some more investigating and found a drawer that had contained some chocolate, which had all been eaten up and the wrapper shredded. So I cleaned out that drawer completely. And I wiped down the counters a bit more. But the weird thing is that the part of the counter where I've been SEEING the mouse is nowhere near that drawer! And where I've seen it, there's plenty of other food it could be getting into so easily -- boxes of cereal, plastic bags with bread in them, even on a couple of occasions unwrapped bread (that had just been baked and was cooling). So wtf?
Also I did some googling and found that supposedly a) you mostly see mice in early spring and early fall, and b) you'll never see a mouse if you have a cat. HA. So here it is the middle of summer and I just got a freaking cat! Who btw was lying at his leisure on the kitchen floor, just chillin', this last time when I came in and saw the mouse disappearing back behind the stove again. So clearly this cat is not doing fuck-all for me, which is irritating. I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the fact that I use that pine pellet litter stuff. Maybe if I used clay litter it would smell more cat-y and scare the mice off? Ugh!
Anyway, I called Brian who lives upstairs and he came and looked and seemed to feel that a) the hole I sorta-kinda plugged up last week doesn't go to the outside but into the basement and b) that might not be how they're getting in anyway and c) there's no point trying to plug up the holes because they'll always find another way in, and therefore d) the only solution is to never have any food out of any kind. Which, I'm sorry but that just isn't feasible, even if I were a WAY better housekeeper than I am. And anyway, the chocolate in the drawer wasn't left out! It was in a DRAWER!
But Brian did say that he would get some traps and put them in the basement. He claims that he had some trouble with mice about a year ago and he put some sticky traps around in his place and the problem stopped. I hate the idea of sticky traps because it's a slow painful death for the mice, but otoh if Brian's going to deal with them then I'll live with it. Also he said he'd try to get some of that spray-in insulation foam stuff, but he wouldn't be able to come by with it until Thursday night. And honestly I don't know if I can wait that long, you guys. I mean today is just ONE day and I saw a mouse in the same place FOUR TIMES, including once after I had wiped the counter all down and cleaned up a whole bunch!
So maybe I'll manage to get some of that foam stuff tomorrow. There's a hardware store in Harvard Square. Then I just have to figure out how to get it into that space behind the stove....
Seriously I am terrified of my kitchen right now, you guys. And I'm really upset about it all. I love this house. And I hate how I feel about it right now. :( :(
edit I meant to add that part of the problem is my lower cabinets aren't sealed closed in the back -- they're kind of open to the walls behind them, it's hard to describe. So once a mouse comes in from the basement he can basically get into any of those cabinets and thus into any drawer. I guess I can blame the previous owners for this. But it doesn't seem like something easy to fix....