New Scourge to Brighten my Days

When I moved from Miami to the frigid tundra here in northern Florida, I did not see the learning curve coming. It keeps slapping me in the face. Today’s challenge: mice. Not a big issue in Miami.

I got up today and made my way to the room where I hang out. I have a couch and recliner set up in front of the TV/computer. When I watch TV with the birds, I put an old quilt on the couch to protect it. I tend to forget to take it off and fold it up. Good thing, because this morning it had little black items on it. Mouse poo.

How did this happen? Who do I complain to? This is not acceptable.

I’ve lived north of the Florida line in the past. I didn’t have mouse problems. This house is so nice, I assumed it was sealed up against pests. I didn’t expect indoor rodents. Now I have to kill them.

The last time I killed household rodents, it was a desperate situation. Rats were running amok in a house destroyed by a drug addict. When I walked in the front door during the day, I could hear them rattling around in the kitchen cabinets. I used Tomcat poison on them. They disappeared quickly. I wasn’t worried about the smell of decaying rats, and I wasn’t in a position to use traps, which require a lot of looking after. Now I’m reading up on mice, and it looks like traps are the way to go.

It’s hard for me to believe that a half-ounce mouse can create much of a smell when it dies, but I don’t want to take a chance.

I guess dropping food scraps into the waste can was not a great move. It must have drawn the mice to the sitting area. Perhaps throwing out excess cheese-flavored popcorn was a bad idea. I hope they didn’t use the remotes.

It appears that I now have two options: never use the waste can for anything a mouse can eat, or remove the bag every night and put it in the garage.

It’s surprising how many things I have to kill in order to have a peaceful life here.

I hate a mouse. I really do.

My Aunt Jean had the worst mice imaginable. She was obsessive about cleanliness. She grew peanuts, and because she had to have the cleanest peanuts on earth, she washed them after she dug them. They rotted and had to be thrown out. Next time around, she didn’t wash them, so they didn’t rot. But they started to disappear. One day she showed me a gallon jug full of peanuts. There was also a filing cabinet drawer that had been filled. The mice had moved the peanuts, presumably one at a time. Thousands of them. She had to throw them out, because how do you get mouse residue off a peanut?

It was like an episode of Monk.

I am tempted to get glue traps, because you don’t have to bait them. You just put them down and pick them up. But glue is not very nice to the mice. They struggle for a long time. I had a rat run across my house with a glue trap stuck to it. I guess snap traps are the answer. How nice.

Well, maybe I’m wrong. I am reading that mice get less gullible with time, and that you need to make a big assault on the first day you go after them. Maybe the best answer is several snap traps and several glue trays.

Miserable, stinking creeps. They will rue the day.