Squeak

I'm slightly embarrassed to write about this, but it is what it is.

There's been a mouse in the house.  Actually, there have been mice in the house, but that doesn't rhyme quite as well.  

It must be said that our little rental house is just fine.  It was recently renovated and is clean and as nice a home as you can expect for an inexpensive rental in suburban Oklahoma.  However, our back yard might as well be a field.  It is huge, and we have no neighbors behind us.  The problem seems to come from the combination of our "wild" surroundings and the fact that it is an older home that, despite renovation, is going to have its nooks and crannies for little critters to find.  

I first saw the little booger, of course, when Jonathan was out of town.  As I sat on the couch nursing Rhett, a movement in the kitchen caught my eye.  A teensy mouse had run out of that hole next to the dishwasher that you can see in the above picture, and he just stood there in the middle of the kitchen floor for a second before running back in.  I saw him two more times before we caught him in a little sticky trap.  An animal lover, I preferred the more humane method of catching the little guys and having Jonathan release them in a field near his office.  

We caught two this way, but they just kept coming.  Every night I would sit on the couch nursing Rhett and see quick-as-lightening movements out of the corner of my eye that I just knew were little mice running on my kitchen floor.  Then I would hear them squeaking, almost like a mouse version of a cat fight.  They never ate our food or damaged anything that we could see, but it was so unnerving just knowing they were there.  Poor Weber was beside herself, her hunting instincts in full force, yet she was never quite able to follow through on the quick little creatures that taunted her from their hiding places in the walls with their scratching and squeaking.  It was like they had figured out how to avoid our sticky traps and carry on with their fun.  

One afternoon, I opened the cabinet under the sink to throw something in the trash, and there were two little faces staring up at me out of the trash can.  I flipped, even making Riggins cry because Mama was screaming in the kitchen!  But I flipped because I realized that also under the sink was the bin where I kept all of Rhett's bottles and some other feeding-related items for the kiddos.  Luckily I hadn't used anything from that bin in over a month, because I pulled out the bin and found mouse droppings everywhere, along with many destroyed bibs and other items that I had to throw away.  I had to sanitize every single thing, which took forever.

This was war.  No more Miss Nice Sticky Traps.  No more taking Riggins to Petco to show him the cute little mice in their cages.  These vermin are the spawn of Satan and they will die.  

Out came the big guns: the snap traps.  Within two days we had killed three of the buggers, and after that we used steel wool to seal up every hole and crack we could find.  We haven't seen one since.  

I officially have an exception clause to my animal lover status: no mercy for mice!  I will gladly use a snap trap and happily throw your dead little body into the trash can.  You've been warned, Mickey.