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Help! I just saw it climb up on top of the book shelf. I can't go back to slp, and I don't dare go back upstairs, where I might fall asleep without my alarm nearby. And school starts today. And I'm SCARED OF A MOUSE.
That is all. Thank you for listening.
[ October 10, 2005, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I found a rat in one of our bedrooms this morning. It was building a nest with leaves it brought in from outside, and it gained entrance through a hole in the grate. Fahim, after hearing me scream, confirmed it was, indeed, a rat and not just a large mouse, and then we repaired the hole from the outside.
This also explains our rats from a couple of months ago - they must have been using this as a port of entry.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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It has half a tail, poor baby! The cats must have gotten to it already. It is rather slow, too. I just got it out of the bedroom/office/small animal slaughter-house, and opened the dorr to outside, but the silly thing is hiding in the hallway.
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I can't imagine why me telling you about a rat in our house has you unscared. It wouldn't change how I felt! I hate the things, and I scream every single time I see anything that moves, including stupid geckos. And they're not that big.
Of course it's hiding in the hallway. Why on earth would it go free? It would have to risk exposure to the giant (you) to get there.
Be glad it's not the four-foot long lizard we had in our house a month back. That thing was stoopid and would not go out the open door. Oh no!
Fahim had to open the garage door for it to go out that way. Because it was trying to break down the door into the rest of our house, or go up the stairs to the bedrooms up there, rather than going out the other open door.
Dumb thing.
Finally, it left. And I've since confirmed that we have, in fact, at least three lizards living on our roof. The four foot long one is the biggest. The others are 3-3 1/2 feet long, and 3 feet long. Measurements approximate.
Sigh. Life in the tropics.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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One time I was sharing a rather nice townhouse w/ several other women. One of them was moving out, and we were recruiting a new housemate that we liked to help us w/ the rent. We had her over to dinner one night. We NEVER had mice. But of course that night an incredibly bold mouse showed up and zipped across the living room and up and down the hall several times. Really. We NEVER had mice. She didn't move in.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I know, but it's nowhere as funny to answer if I don't take into account your simulated frustration. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Mouse nothing... We had freaking raccoons in our farmhouse this summer! Stupid darn raccoons... I used to think they were cute with their little hands... but now I know them for the horrible things they are. They ripped a hole in the attic, used everything as their toilet, and just trashed the place. We trapped three, but then my brother accidently let one escape. Hopefully the traps we left behind will get him.
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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We had a mousie infestation problem a couple of years back. I set out mousie poison. The meeses skulked down to the basement to die, so I would regularly check to see if there were any little mousie corpses. If there were any, I'd let rip with the "Eek -- a mouse!!" screams, and dispatch my son to dispose of the mousie. He did not dispose of the meeses. He refused the delegation of that responsibility, and returned it to me.
Latex gloves -- two pair. Ziploc bags -- two. Brown paper bag -- one. Plastic grocery bag -- one. And a face mask, to protect against any possilbe Hantavirus. I double glove and mask. Pick up mousie ("EEK!"), place in ziploc bag and seal. Place THAT in another ziploc bag and seal. Place THAT in a brown paper lunch bag. Place THAT in the plastic grocery bag. Take THAT outside right away to put it in the trash can. Remove gloves and mask and throw them in the trash can, close the lid. Now I can stop screaming.
The combination of the mousie poison and the screaming has prevented any further mousie invasions. The screaming may actually have driven them from the neighborhood.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Boon
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We had a mouse in the house yesterday. It was sitting on the ledge of the sliding glass door. So I went and got the cat.
Ashlynd does not like to be picked up or held. So it was a chore to get her into the dining room. But once she saw the mouse, she stopped struggling to get away from me, went very still and tense. I let her go, she nabbed the mouse.
Then she played with it for over an hour, batting it around and daring it to run from her before she'd pounce on it again. It's little, high-pitched squeee squeee sound was annoying. Finally, we heard a crunch sound...then another crunch crunch crunch, and the mouse was gone.
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I love how Elizabeth goes from scared stiff to pitying the beast in under two hours...
And Adam, I think mice are hardwired to do that. My sister (when she worked at a grocery store) used to tell me stories all the time of mice that would burrow straight through a case of chips or Cheetoes or whatever snack food they managed to sniff out.
Because I live really close to the railroad tracks, (or at least this is the explanation I got) I get squeakers every winter. I use glue traps to catch the little beasties, then take them out still attached to the trap. (a small wastebasket overturned onto the trap and then a cardboard lid prevent any form of contact) I also set out poison one year, but the boxes were emptied within a day or two and no apparent reduction in the number of creatures, so I've given up on that. Besides, I'd really rather not risk a child getting into those boxes.
I've discovered that a blend of peppermint and spearmint essential oils (NOT cooking extracts), mixed 50/50 and sprayed on the carpeting just at the doorway to the kitchen seems to keep them confined to the one room - or at least I've never seen evidence of them making it to the pantry or beyond. Plus then my apartment smells minty. Pure peppermint also works but not as well as the blend. If I could figure out where they're actually getting in, I'd fill the hole with steel wool and cottonballs soaked in mint mix, but I suspect it's in the crawlspace somewhere.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Mice, schmice. They don't frighten me. Anything with less than 6 legs is not too repulsive. Big spiders, however....
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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A few years ago I had a mouse infestation in another home (not the townhouse noted above) and I put out mouse poison. Never again! My little mouse did not skulk down to the basement to die. It died under my bed in my room. After I'd been gone for a couple of days. (note to self or anyone else: never put out poison and leave town.) It smelled really bad, and it made me so, so, sad, as there was *Gross-out warning: You may stop reading here* blood and other signs of intense suffering and struggle on my carpet.
I don't think I'll ever use poison again. I use mousetraps baited w/ a little peanut butter. Bang, you're dead, and for disposal just use a gloved hand to grip corner of trap and toss. And you know just where to look for them, because you know where you left the trap. Of course, if there are small children around this isn't the best solution, but that's not the case for me.
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Only when I was sick. Other than that, I wasn't allowed to watch cartoons much.
And I spent a lot of time hiking and being told not to approach any animal because we were hiking where bubonic plague was endemic.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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"I love how Elizabeth goes from scared stiff to pitying the beast in under two hours..."
Well, the fact that it turned out to be a chipmunk did help. And the fact that it was about 4 or 5 Am when I first saw(what I thought was the) the mouse did not help.
Now, I am not sure if it went out the door or not. My husband has not seen it.
Really, it is the surprise of the whole thing that is scariest about small rodents in houses. But Quid's stories, well, they are just plain frightening! Give me New England, and its creatures of forest and field, and day.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Mack, it went fine. it was teacher day, the kids come tomorrow. We had an inspirational speaker who was entertaining, if not inspirational, and that kept me awake.
The mousemunk really did not help, though.
I hate our new bedroom. We had wanted to have it all ready and bedroom-like by the time school started. I am sort of weird about sleep. I have to feel like I am in my nest, and not the nest of some woodland creature.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Yes, the kitchen floor went from 70's orange and brown tiel to a lovely off white with green diamonds. I saved you a piece, though, Myr!
We moved downstairs so the kids could have their own rooms. They are all cozy and cool in the a.c, while we are down here in the basement. When the door opens to the garage, the whole room smells like garage for half an hour. The cats bring animals through the cat window, or just scare th crap out of me by coming through. When I shut the window, they yowl, and/or bang the cat window against the glass. It is 70's panel, probably another Myr-loved item, and we have not had time to paint it, because Steve is insisting on filling in all the grooves with putty.
It just isn't "home" down here yet, and I need it to be.
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No. Except "Captain Planet", which we were allowed to watch once a week. Mostly we watched hardly any TV at all.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I have mice and rats in my kitchen...of course, they are all in cages and have names, but still.... Posts: 1225 | Registered: Feb 2002
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One of my childhood friends, when she was around fourteen, found a tick on her leg.
She was alone at home and the tick was in a spot where it was impossible for her to pull it off herself, so she had to wait for someone to get home before said tick could be removed.
She hated ticks.
Now, she had to deal.
So she named it Oliver.
Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Now there are beetles! They are coming from the litter box! We clean the litter box regularly, and yet, here they are, walking across the floor. I am going to have to move in with my son upstairs. Isn't that supposed to be later on, when I am much, much older? What the heck ARE these things? Has anyone had beetles in their litter box before?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Nope. But we have tick beetles here. We found one a week ago, and had no idea what it was at first. Thought it might have been a rat. Fahim took it outside and liberated it.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Er, sorry, no, not because it was big enough to be rat. Because it made enough noise that we thought it might be a rat. It was before we actually found it. It was hiding in or under a bag in the corner making a lot of noise, so we poked it delicately, me standing on the stairs above it so I wouldn't be in its path of destruction, and that was how we figured it out.
Thanks for the laugh, though.
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Or should I tell you about the squirrels that come in and run up the curtains, too? Or the snails I find in the kitchen sink (1.5" or so long shell)? Or the millipedes that come in the house? Or . . . The freakishly huge spiders with even larger egg sacs?
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I think I'll keep him.
