Mice in house...

[conuly]

Yeah, we have a bit of a mouse problem. But I don't want to *kill* them. I want to catch them humanely, and then take them far away in the freezing cold where there's lots of cats. Then it's nature killing them. Alternatively, I want to bring a cat inside. Then it's a cat killing them, and I get a pet cat out of the deal.

Right now I'm looking into humane traps. Because I really don't want to be the one dealing the death blow.

Yesterday, I got one cornered in the kitchen radiator. I kept trying to nudge it out, so it'd land in a big pot and I could take it outside (far from the house) and let it go, but it was too smart for that. It finally scurried under the little fridge. And then, when I moved the fridge, it ran out to my mom. BROOM! Back to me. POT! Mom. BROOM! Me. POT! BROOM! POT! BROOM! POT! BROOM!

RUNACROSSFLOORUNDERBIGFRIDGE!

Where it's no doubt still sitting, assuredly plotting death and destruction upon this house. Cute little thing, but far too smart for its own good.

Comments

[adiva_calandia]

We used to have mice -- back when our dog was alive. He would chase them. His last day of life, we caught a couple, and he spent a few hours staring at them, tail wagging madly. My two best mouse stories:

So my dad was cleaning out the back of our RV, when he came across a huge pile of shredded newspaper (this was at the height of our mouse invasion) that was rustling. "Oh boy," he thought, "I've got a nest of baby mice on my hands." So he pulls out the ShopVac and vacuums up the babies. Keep in mind that a ShopVac is pretty much just a tube that sucks air -- and about half the babies survived the following few days. We raised them to adulthood, and they acquired the habit of jumping up to the wire screen that covered their cage, hooking their claws into the mesh, and walking around upside down with a little "Chpok-chpok-chpok" noise.

The other story is from when my dad was in college, working as a shakerat (it has something to do with lumber *shrugs*) and living in a trailer with his buddies. Well, they got mice, and the mice took up residence between the walls of the trailer. They set traps, and got rid of most of the mice. But one night, Dad woke up to a weird sound -- POONK rattle-rattle-rattle. . . . POONK rattle-rattle-rattle. . . he traced it to a mouse that had gotten stuck in a glass Coke bottle. It would leap up and hook its paws around the rim of the bottle (POON), be unable to get out, and drop back down (rattle). So Dad took it outside, got a good grip on the bottle, then swung his arm around so that centrifugal force ejected the mouse forcibly as far into the woods as possible.

I doubt either of these stories really help your mouse problem, but at least they're amusing. :) Just don't use sticky traps -- I understand mice will do the whole gnawing-through-the-leg bit to escape those *shudder*