Tales of the Intrepid Mouse Hunter
So this morning Becky went downstairs to let Cinnamon out for her morning business, and the big 40 pound bag of dogfood shook and made noises and scared the bejeebers out of her. Mouse inside. Or maybe jumping off. Whatever. Becky didn’t like it. Tonight I went down and set out five standard traps and four boxes of d-Con at strategic locations where Cinnamon couldn’t get at them. Just made it back up to the top of the stairs when Clack! Score one for Mouse Hunter.
Lest anyone decry the senseless and inhumane slaughter of these cute little denizens of God’s kingdom, let me just say that we had no takers on the ads we ran during the last invasion, seeking sensitive mouse catchers to collect them up in a humane and painless fashion and relocate them to an environmentally friendly habitat. All we succeeded in doing was generating a heated debate about whether it was humane to abandon domesticated mice in a natural habitat where, deprived through no fault of their own of normal development of defensive behaviors, they would fall easy and unsportsmanlike prey to predators if, indeed, they did not starve first for want of foraging skills in a non-man-made domain. Who knows how long the picketing factions would have scowled and hurled epithets at each other on Lazy Brook Lane if the fellow down on Brush Creek hadn’t been spotted gouging into the gopher runs in his back yard, pitch fork in one hand and baseball bat in the other. Apparently, skewered and battered gopher is more tantalizing than garroted mouse.
p>. :coonskincap:
Kathie says:
Actually, standard mouse-traps are an efficient and relatively humane way to rid the house of mice. Death is almost instant in almost all trappings. If the poor rodent is unlucky enough to not get snapped on the spine, death can be more slow and agonizing. But it they’re snapped anywhere on the spinal column or skull, the force in the trap is enough to cause instant death. The d-Con, however, is a rather painful way to go. The active ingredient, brodifacoum, is a nasty poison. Absorbed through the gut, it inhibits the vitamin K-dependent steps in the synthesis of multiple clotting factors. Death usually occurs through gastric hemorrhage. At least you’re not using those mad glue-traps…what a way to go…stuck to the floor, you starve to death or die of thirst, completely aware of your inability to move and totally uncomprehending.
Maybe Cinnamon should take up mousing.
John says:
Well, then, two more met their maker almost instantly during the night. Quite a lot had been eaten out of the d-Con boxes. Maybe the same two, who then crawled over to the traps to put themselves out of their misery. I had five traps out, and I wish I could be hopeful that three was all. But, experience tells me… I should buy more traps. I saw some of those glue traps and didn’t believe they could actually work. Now that I know they do, I’ll get some. I can take live squirming beasties out back for target practice with the BB gun!
Yeah, it would great if Cinnamon would help out. But rodents seem quite capable of running all over the floor downstairs right in front of her. Maybe they don’t make enough noise to wake her up. The other night she was after one, though, trying to dig through the landing by the front door. Imagine getting woke up in the middle of the night, lying in bed trying to figure out what that noise was. Kim and Stephen might remember how she dug up the linoleum floor in the utility room when she was a puppy, as well as nearly digging through the wall. Dumb dawg.
Kathie says:
I can’t say I am happy to hear I’ve added glue traps to your arsenal. However, if you do decide to use those horrible things, I would hope you would be so kind as to put the animal out of its misery with the BB gun. I really don’t like those glue traps. Can you tell?
As far as the number of traps is concerned, one trap every 3 feet of wall space is optimal.
Boo Dcon.
John says:
This is so weird. On the way home from work I stopped at the hardware store to get more traps, including glue traps. At the checkout, she couldn’t find a UPC code on the glue traps to scan them. She was going to get a price check, but there were people in line, and we had already been waiting longer than anybody liked. I told her to forget it, I didn’t want them. Got home and decided to eat before setting out traps. While we were eating, the remaining two traps from last night sprang, about two minutes apart. Scratch two more meeses. After supper I put out six more traps. Oh, and disposed of the two.
Kathie says:
(In a booming and echoing voice…) HA HA HAAAA! NOW YOU HAVE SEEN MY AWESOME POWERS OF TELEPATHY AND TELEKENESIS! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DEFY MY OMNIPOTENCE!! ALL MICE WILL BE DISPOSED OF IN A HUMANE FASHION; THOSE WHO ATTEMPT OTHERWISE WILL FACE MY WRATH!! MUA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!
just kidding…that is really wierd.
John says:
Yikes! The Wrath of Chan!
Three more since the last report. Present body count: at least 8. We may never know how many expire in the walls due to internal hemorrhaging from d-Con gluttony.
John says:
I had 5 traps to start with. I bought 16 more. As of this morning I have 4 left. That means, 17 dead meeses! Holy shit! It gives Becky the shivers thinking there were that many mice living with us. Me, too, now that I think about it. I’m going to have to investigate more carefully to find where they came in. But, I’m not convinced they’re not descendants of a colony that’s been in the walls for years.
Kathie says:
Yeah, that’s a ton of mice. I would suggest the following: Keep trapping, and seal holes in the interior walls. Try to seal entrances, and for heaven’s sake, put the dog food and biscuits in an airtight container. Mice can live of of a very small amount of loose dogfood…it’s really high in nutrition.
John says:
Um, how’s Cinnamon supposed to eat if it’s in an airtight container? And if there are mouse holes in interior walls, they’re somewhere inaccessible to a critter my size. Maybe things are looking up, though. No new corpses since this morning. We’ll see what goes down overnight.
Kathie says:
Not her daily ration, silly. The bulk. So, that 40 pound bag, and the mega-box of biscuits. And, yes, the holes are most likely behind bookshelves, laundry appliances, and other things
John says:
And, of course, there are certain large holes in the walls. 😕
Only one fatality this morning. I think we’ve gained some ground.