I had seen little black things on the floor everyday for a while now, but I thought they were part of the turf that Brian often drags into the house after a soccer game. Whenever I'd see them, I'd get the dust buster and vacuum them up without a second thought. I just KNEW it had to be from Brian's soccer shoes so I didn't worry one bit. Until I found them in my pots and pans.
I was wanting chicken salad really bad one day so I decided to go get all the ingredients to make some. When it was time to grab a pan to cook the chicken, I opened the drawer and noticed about 50 pieces of little oozing nasty black things that looked very similar to what I thought was the turf. I think these had more time to sit there since they weren't in the open, so they were much nastier. It finally hit me that Brian would not step into the pan drawer and that something else was leaving it's trail.
I put the pan out on the counter for Brian to look at when he got home because that's the kind of thing a man of the house has to look forward to after a long day of work. When he got back and looked at it he said immediately: "Yep, that's mouse poop. I wasn't going to tell you, but we've had mice for a while now. I saw one while I was watching tv the other day by the fireplace."
Ummm…excuse ME?!?!
It spooked me out, but it didn't get absolutely personal until the thing started eating all my avocados. I haven't had any major pregnancy cravings except for avocados so the mouse was starting to walk in dangerous territories. I started trying to move the avocados to where he couldn't get them, but bionic mouse finds them NO MATTER WHAT. No matter how high…no matter how much it seems like he couldn't ever get there…he makes it. And eats it. About a quarter size chunk shell and all.
"Should we just put out a food bowl so it doesn't eat my avocados?"
My plans are sadly trying to work around the mouse. We are getting traps but part of me is so scared of being the one to stumble across it first.
The mouse has been EVERYWHERE in the house. There's poop on the couch, in the cabinets, on the counters, in the bathrooms, in the closets…no place left unexplored. When we go to sleep at night it really seems like he gets a nice meal, takes a bath, watches the DVRed "Healing in the Heartland" and then just poops in every room for fun. It's out of control.
Mice are really illusive and don't want to be seen so they are very hard to catch. This is good in the fact that we usually don't come face to face, but I hear his rumblings in the pantry or on my counter every once in a while. I start banging on walls and stomping on the floor before I go into any room so he knows to get out of the way.
The other night, we did come into contact with our problem, though. We stayed up late because we hadn't had a chance to be together because the night had been so busy so we were up at 11:30. That's around the time when the mice come out to start their day. Brian walked into the kitchen and saw it run down behind the oven from the counter which showed us how he was making it to my precious avocados.
Brian took out the bottom drawer and asked me to run get a broom and started poking under the oven. He had no idea the mouse was in the drawer, so while he thought he was getting the mouse, the mouse jumped out right in front of his face and scampered on back.
We could tell it was hiding about halfway up the oven back wall, so he moved the entire thing trying to get the mouse to come out. I had the idea to use the swiffer to poke behind from the top so it had no place to go but to where Brian was. Me and Beau got up on the counter and were poking like crazy while Brian waited sprawled out on the floor with a broom at the bottom.
The mouse finally ran out and made a big scene while Brian whacked at it but it quickly got up into a hole UNDERNEATH our cabinets! I mean these things know of places we don't even know of. We thought of plugging the hole, but where would we be if there was a dead mouse stuck under our cabinets where we couldn't get to it? We had to leave it alone and wait until we had a trap.
So now I'm just plugging the bottom of my bedroom door as best as I can and making lots of noise whenever I leave my room while we wait to win this war. There was poop right beside my bed, so I know he comes in and looks at us and laughs at night.
But we will have the last laugh. He might have won the battle, but WE will win the war.
