A couple of weeks ago I noticed some things that looked suspiciously like mouse droppings in the house. I only saw a couple, so I kind of dismissed it. Then this weekend I saw several more on top of the dog kennel, and I pointed them out to Mark.
It wasn't until Monday night while Mark was at a coaching meeting that I actually saw the mouse. I was in the dining room and a bit of motion in the kitchen caught my eye. I watched the mouse run back and forth along the south wall of the kitchen until he squeezed out the tiniest of holes formed at the corner of the door and the door jamb.
I wouldn't have believed he could have fit through there if I hadn't watched him do it!
Last night, Mark and I were sitting at the dining room table. I was getting ready to head upstairs for bed and he was finishing some computer work. All of a sudden, our very slow golden retriever jumped up in the air and leapt towards the bookcase. In very short time we had two dogs running back and forth from one side of the bookcase to the other. We had pretty much decided it was the mouse, and then I was able to see him underneath the corner chair with the flashlight. He couldn't figure out which direction to run, as it seemed (to him) that there were dogs everywhere he went.
We didn't really have a good plan for catching the mouse (nor any plan whatsoever of what we would do with it once we caught it!) but much hilarity ensued as we attempted to catch the mouse. Mark set up a box on one side of the bookshelf and then started moving the chair out of the corner and things off of the bookshelf to coerce the mouse into our box. I was no help whatsoever as I was really trying to get a picture of the cute mouse. The "catching" ended when the mouse turned tail and ran back towards Mark. In the resulting peals of laughter and dogs going crazy and Mark jumping up to make sure there wasn't a mouse in his shorts, the mouse escaped.
Not only is he cute, but he provides lots of entertainment. Thanks, George. :)
Mouse hunting
Here's George! (you can just see his little head peeking out from behind the bookcase)
7 comments:
If you decide to try and set a trap (humane or otherwise), I strongly recommend peanut butter. They can't seem to resist!
Georgiy says he loves the name of your mouse;
Having survived a mouse infestation in our house last year. (I have the most awful story that will cause you to never eat cereal again!) and hiring an exterminator, we learned a very hard lesson. Once you see EVIDENCE of mice INSIDE your house in BUSY areas, you're headed for trouble. Once you actually see a mouse, it's almost certain you have A LOT OF MICE hiding in your house!!!
Some things you can do: Make sure you dog food is in a SEALED container. No food out on counters AT ALL. Not ANY kind of food. (mice will eat nearly anything. ) And, to be honest, after my cereal incident last year, all our cereal is either in a sealed, SOLID container, or in the fridge!
If you start noticing more snakes near your house than usual, you are in BIG trouble and have a SERIOUS infestation. Snakes follow the mice, and will wait near the mouse exits to catch their next meal. And, they will use the same openings to get into the walls of your house.
All stuff we learned the hard way, BLECH!!!!!
I had only seen one mouse. (goes back to the cereal story) But, because I'd been through a mouse infestation growing up in my parents house, I knew we were in trouble. We started setting out traps right away, and...no kidding...we were catching 2 or 3 mice EVERY NIGHT! We were most often catching them in quieter areas of the house, like our storage room and laundry room. We put them just outside our garage service door (the one that leads from the garage to the house), and, after 3 nights in a row of catching a mouse, we started putting 2 traps there, and were catching 2 mice there every night! Can you say eewwwwwwwwwwwww? It took us about 3 months before we stopped catching mice. Now, once I see what I think might possibly be mouse poop, I freak out and poison cakes under the kitchen appliances. You do have to be very careful with those though. We have 4 dogs, and once in the middle of the night I heard rattling in the kitchen. I went out to find my dogs sitting watching a mouse try to drag the poison cake out from under the stove, (seriously, it was like they were watching TV.)
You're a better woman than I am! I'm so right there with Leah. There is NOTHING cute about mice at my house. When they appear, they are quickly served a smorgusboard of De-Con. Cute as they may look, they are NASTY little critters...they get into EVERYTHING and it is totally creepy when they fight right above your head in the ceiling.
I've never had snakes come in the house, but I can always tell when my neighbors find their nests and exterminate them. Within HOURS I have a new infestation of mice in my house that takes weeks to get rid of. I'll take the snakes over the mice any day!
I know I shouldn't think he's so cute, and I'm sure if we're seeing them out and about we probably do have an infestation. Thankfully, we haven't yet noticed any getting into our food and the dog food is all in closed plastic garbage pails. That said, I know they'll eat just about anything and we've got to get rid of them before they run us out of the house! :)
I'll lend you Silas and Solomon if you need them. They are our resident expert mousers.
My kids think that if we have a mouse, they should leave treats out for him.
YUCK! I cannot stand having mice in the house. And they always appear when my husband is out of town. I think I had a heart attack while I was disposing of one from a trap. It was awful!
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