esrosedotblog

MOUSE

We have mice. I first heard them a few days ago in the east cupboard in the kitchen. I pounded on the cabinet door to roust them hoping that they would not want to settle in a noisy apartment.

Last night I heard scrambling on the west cupboard. Evidently my efforts in the east were effective. Unfortunately, I had not thought the matter through. The garbage is on the west side. I had driven them to their very goal. This morning there is debris around the garbage bag with little holes--smart holes right where there is food.

I could not find our traps; so, I endured a trip to the hardware store and a lecture from the clerk on the value of various approaches. Unfortunately, it is Sunday; and what we have is the non-professional stand-in clerk who is really giving his own opinion and not the facts.

The lecture was all air anyway. There were no mechanical traps in stock. There has been a run on them--all sizes. Apparently I am not the only one under siege. The warehouse in Pamona does not have them either.

By default, I went for the glue strip even though the guy told me that a tough mouse would just run with it; but shit, they are coming through the pipe chases, so what's the deal with that? Does he mean that the mouse is going to spend his life with a glue strip on his foot? Terminix uses glue strips if they cannot use bait. We have them outside. They occasionally catch the unwary or retarded rodent; but we get more dead ones in the pool than in the traps.

The trouble with any of them is that there is going to be a body to dispose of. I am good at this and the only one in the house that is; but that does not mean that I enjoy it.

Now I am told that the glue strip is inhumane. So is the mechanical snap trap kinder and gentler? Will the PETA people be at my door over this? With 'humane' traps you have to release the mouse into the wild. Well, the wild is our back yard. I could take the car and put the live mouse in someone else's yard.

The traps are in place. More later when there is something to report.