The Great Mouse Invasion of 2004
Due to recent circumstances here at the ol' homestead, I have come to a deep, meaningful, almost spiritual rapport with a being so totally different from in close to every respect except for our shared hatred of a common foe.
That's right Jinxie ... I hate meeces to pieces too!
I know how he must of felt, tormented night and day by furry fiends mocking him at every turn. Laying trap after trap, in a fruitless pursuit of a mouse free house.
It all started with a scratch here, a squeak there, just a furtive, almost unheard noise amidst the bustle of our happy home. Then came the subtle hints of a nibble at the corner of a cereal or rice box, next an outright hole, the contents spilling out like the dried lifeblood of a wounded beast, staining the pantry shelves a corn-flakey yellow.
So, like any dutiful husband, I marched to the hardware store to loadup on traps. Once there I also found some electronic mouse repellers, designed to scare them off using ultrasonic sound. So armed, I returned home, happy and confident in my superiority over my unwanted house guests and sure of victory.
Cut to: 3 weeks later. Situation: Starting to piss me off.
OK, I hooked up the mouse repellers according to the directions, beaming what is said to be 220db of earsplitting - to meeces - ultrasonic sound throughout the house, that is SUPPOSED to drive them screaming from their hidey-holes and into the night, presumably to infest the neighbors house. That was the plan. The reality is, however, that my house is a crashpad for headbanging little metal mice, who spend their nights flashing the two-claw DIO salute and forming mousy moshpits and generally having a grand old time.
Hmmmm. Strike one.
So I went to the tried and true trap method. Broke out them easy set traps, baited them with peanut butter, only squished my fingers about 5 times setting them and placed them in various strategic locations. And, voila! Meeces, squashed to perfection. Bolstered by my seeming success, I reset the traps, rebaited and laid them out again. And again, dead mice, ready for the trash heap.
The third time though, the traps were positioned, baited, and we waited, and waited, and then, just to be different, we waited some more. No mice. Now I know we did not get them all, I could still hear them at night, headbanging away to the sound of ultrasonic mayhem. No, they were learning to avoid the traps! Drat, I hate when that happens. So we repositioned them, in the hopes the different locations, meant different, hopefully dumber mice. Nothing. Great, the mice have started their own little public school system, required class: Trap Evasion 101.
Strike two.
I'm about ready to cry defeat, without waiting for strike three, and call in the professionals. I really didn't want to incur the expense, or have poison strewn around my house, mainly because of two dogs with more appetite than common sense, but I think I'm at that point.
Even as I am typing this, I can hear a scratch here, a skitter there, letting me know they are watching, rubbing it in that, at least for now, they have won.
And I swear that at night, just as I'm drifting off to sleep, I can hear two voices, talking behind the walls ---
"What are we going to do tonite Brain?"
"Same thing we do every night Pinky. Drive this poor sucker crazy!"
No wonder I can't win ... I've been invaded by the - as Luke Ski so aptly put it - The Rodentia Supreme!
Later.
That's right Jinxie ... I hate meeces to pieces too!
I know how he must of felt, tormented night and day by furry fiends mocking him at every turn. Laying trap after trap, in a fruitless pursuit of a mouse free house.
It all started with a scratch here, a squeak there, just a furtive, almost unheard noise amidst the bustle of our happy home. Then came the subtle hints of a nibble at the corner of a cereal or rice box, next an outright hole, the contents spilling out like the dried lifeblood of a wounded beast, staining the pantry shelves a corn-flakey yellow.
So, like any dutiful husband, I marched to the hardware store to loadup on traps. Once there I also found some electronic mouse repellers, designed to scare them off using ultrasonic sound. So armed, I returned home, happy and confident in my superiority over my unwanted house guests and sure of victory.
Cut to: 3 weeks later. Situation: Starting to piss me off.
OK, I hooked up the mouse repellers according to the directions, beaming what is said to be 220db of earsplitting - to meeces - ultrasonic sound throughout the house, that is SUPPOSED to drive them screaming from their hidey-holes and into the night, presumably to infest the neighbors house. That was the plan. The reality is, however, that my house is a crashpad for headbanging little metal mice, who spend their nights flashing the two-claw DIO salute and forming mousy moshpits and generally having a grand old time.
Hmmmm. Strike one.
So I went to the tried and true trap method. Broke out them easy set traps, baited them with peanut butter, only squished my fingers about 5 times setting them and placed them in various strategic locations. And, voila! Meeces, squashed to perfection. Bolstered by my seeming success, I reset the traps, rebaited and laid them out again. And again, dead mice, ready for the trash heap.
The third time though, the traps were positioned, baited, and we waited, and waited, and then, just to be different, we waited some more. No mice. Now I know we did not get them all, I could still hear them at night, headbanging away to the sound of ultrasonic mayhem. No, they were learning to avoid the traps! Drat, I hate when that happens. So we repositioned them, in the hopes the different locations, meant different, hopefully dumber mice. Nothing. Great, the mice have started their own little public school system, required class: Trap Evasion 101.
Strike two.
I'm about ready to cry defeat, without waiting for strike three, and call in the professionals. I really didn't want to incur the expense, or have poison strewn around my house, mainly because of two dogs with more appetite than common sense, but I think I'm at that point.
Even as I am typing this, I can hear a scratch here, a skitter there, letting me know they are watching, rubbing it in that, at least for now, they have won.
And I swear that at night, just as I'm drifting off to sleep, I can hear two voices, talking behind the walls ---
"What are we going to do tonite Brain?"
"Same thing we do every night Pinky. Drive this poor sucker crazy!"
No wonder I can't win ... I've been invaded by the - as Luke Ski so aptly put it - The Rodentia Supreme!
Later.