Monday, September 14, 2015

Mischief Monday - Mouse Invasion

Editor's note: This post is not for the squeamish. Pictures are borrowed from the internet as I didn't capture them.  Hailey gets a gold star for her compliance in this story!

As some of you may remember, we have had a bit of a mouse problem this year. We had one eat the hose to our dishwasher. That was a costly repair. Over the summer. in attempts to solve the invasion, we tried the traditional snap trap, the humane trap, all to no avail.

We hadn't seen any signs of the mice so we sort of forgot about it.

Last weekend, we were hanging plastic on the basement garage ceiling (yes we have two garages, a finished 2 car garage upstairs and an unfinished one in the basement). I moved a box and both my brother-in-law and I were sure we had an encounter with a mouse. We heard it and didn't see it and then there was screaming and jumping. The Man thought we were crazy.

Fast forward to Friday morning. I was doing yoga in the basement and I was aware that Hailey was up to something. I left my downward dog to go investigate. Hailey was in laundry room and she was standing there drooling. I realize she has something in her mouth. I say drop it  and unfortunately she did and out fell a newborn mouse.  I will spare you all the other details. I did not scream. I removed Hailey and myself from the laundry room as quickly as possible. I closed the door and put a blanket up under the door (don't ask why is seemed like a good idea at the time). I ended yoga, brought both the dogs upstairs, blocked off the basement and treated myself for shock. Yep, I went into shock over this. Country girl I am not! When I called Man, he laughed at me, while I admit to hysterical babbling.

Now that I had been completely traumatized, it was time to bring in the big guns. The Man resorted to the glue traps and picked some up on his way home.

I can report that on the first night we caught one mouse in the basement garage.  We will be adding one to the drawer under the oven as I found a lot of mouse poop in it on Saturday. We will continue to leave these traps out for likely a few weeks to see if we can solve this problem once and for all.

Mice at least 21   Us 2


The Man did a huge search of the basement (because I wouldn't go down until he did) and even after moving the couch and everything, he can't find any sign of mice. It is a complete mystery where the newborn came from. I am not even going to think about it because I am still dealing with my trauma.




20 comments:

  1. Hari OM
    Uh oh... there is never just ONE baby where mice are concerned.... good luck for remainder of the 'removals'......... YAM xx

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  2. I know the details of mouse-confetti :o( I hope you can get them all, I totally dislike to find mouse-poop inside and they know no mercy and enter even wardrobes and closets... not to mention the damage Easy will do when he is on mice-hunt :o(

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  3. Sadly - where there is one - there is usually many - maybe hailey ate the rest before you found her :)

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  4. BOL it has nothing to do with not being a country girl, my mom has been one all her life and Rats (mom calls all mice Rats) give her the heebie jeebbies. She says they are too damn fast and might run up her pants leg and just the thought of that makes her skin crawl. Good job Lee for protecting your Lady from the Rat.

    Aroo to you,
    Sully

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  5. Good job, Hailey, for catching it AND for being a good girl when Momma said to drop it! I know there's some mouse repellant stuff you can put out, that has stuff the miceies don't like to smell. Maybe you could try that too.

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  6. Good job, Hailey, for catching it AND for being a good girl when Momma said to drop it! I know there's some mouse repellant stuff you can put out, that has stuff the miceies don't like to smell. Maybe you could try that too.

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  7. We had tried a variety of methods and after adopting Katy, discovering she had fleas our Vet told us to have the house exterminated. While we were at it, they took care of the mice problem, too. So, we can thank Katy for getting rid of the mice situation. They check for a variety of pest problems quarterly.

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  8. It is getting chillier where we live so they are starting to come into our house even with the 951 cats living on our doorsteps. Good job Hailey.
    stella rose

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  9. OK, there are those who would talk about humane treatment BUTT when it is a mouse mom is NOT one of them. She suggests getting a machine gun and mowing them all down. Maybe a bomb might do the trick. Good luck (she would be in shock too!)

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley

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  10. Oh no! I'm sorry you had some unwelcome guests! That can be scary, especially if you're not expecting it!

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  11. LOL at Murphy and Stanley....Luckily, we haven't seen any mice around here....thank goodness!

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  12. OMG. The horror. We had a mouse in our house when we lived in Bermuda (we've since had them here too, but that was the first time I ever saw one) and I *immediately* turned into one of those ladies in a cartoon - jumping up on the furniture and grabbing the hem of my skirt and screaming. We had Rita kill one in our curent house - and leave it for me beside the bed. (I swear she's part cat.) So, maybe the dogs will help catch them all?! (My fave line is "I ended yoga..." Um, YEAH! Cuz no way in hell can you peacefully go back to doing yoga after that experience!)

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  13. We did have a mouse once, but he didn't like being stared at and chased all evening, so we think he told his mates and they went somewhere else. SHE's squeamish when it comes to traps....they never seem to just kill the mouse. We end up with maimed, suffering little creatures.

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  14. Did you treat yourself for shock by having a stiff drink? We always have an invasion of mice in our basement every fall and winter as we are "country" dwellers too. My husband sets traps and last year had a record number of victims. It is a job only my husband takes care of so I know how you feel.

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  15. Dear Ojo's Cousin Lee,

    Nice job on the baby mouse! Ojo is still offering to come help you get the rest of them. Just wave the treats and she will be there! (Of course, if you catch them all yourself then you get all the treats, so maybe you should get on that?)

    Licks,
    Cobi

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  16. Yikes. We've had way too many mice encounters in our house. We have ultrasonic boxes on every floor of the house now and it does seem to help.
    My beagle once dropped a dead one that had been chomped on a few times right at my feet. Yes, I was traumatized and made a babbling phone call to my hubby as well!
    They can be really destructive and when we were remodeling once the contractor told us we were lucky our house hadn't burned down because they had done so much electrical damage.

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  17. I don't do the mice. Hubs has to handle that. And he's had his fair share. We snap them, I hate the idea of the glue pads and of course with two dogs, poison is out of the question. I'm going to have to check on those ultrasonic things Jan mentioned...I hope you've recovered. :-)

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