LAST EPISODE????

I thought I was done with mice  I thought I'd sent the message loud and clear that I would not tolerate their wanton trespassing into my home.  I guess that's what I get for thinking.

Last week, feeling a little peckish, I went to the pantry to grab a granola bar.  I reached into the box and pulled one out and without looking began to open the wrapper but then noticed this:

I was not a happy camper and immediately set in action a plan that was sure to catch the little culprit.

I put the granola bar in a box and then placed a glue trap right in front.  Genius.  

Ian and I went away for the weekend to a attend a wedding and as soon as I arrived home I immediately checked the pantry and this is what I found....

the trap gone and the box chewed through in one corner.

I turned the pantry upside down looking for that mouse and the trap.  I searched in vain.   

I called Kere and asked if maybe she or Matthew had found it and disposed of it.  She told me that she had gone into the pantry to get a new box of cereal and had heard something scurrying around so she hightailed it out of there.

Thanks Kere.

All week long it has bothered me.  I have taken a flashlight and checked every nook and cranny of that room.  Where on earth could it have gone?   If I hadn't taken pictures to document it, I would have thought that maybe I had imagined putting the trap there.  It was kind of freaking me out.  

Tonight while watching TV I caught a whiff of something rather unpleasant.  We pulled the sofa away from the wall and while the odour increased, we couldn't see anything.  We turned the sofa upside down and there, stuck to the bottom of the sofa was the glue trap, dead mouse and all.  Yuck!

Somehow the mouse had managed to make it across the pantry room floor and under the door to the family room...

and then under the sofa.

Hopefully this is the last episode of the "Mouse Wars".

OF MICE AND WOMAN

That friend of mine was right.. the one that pointed out that there is always more than just one mouse. 

Yes, a whole punk gang was making themselves quite at home in my pantry.  They were getting the best of me too, eating chocolate chips, pasta noodles, and fine Belgian chocolate to their hearts' content.  They were having a grand old time being all rowdy, stealing the bait and setting off my traps.  They were having a great time at my expense.  Sure I managed to catch one a few weeks ago but I realized later that it was the stupid fat one of the bunch.  He probably drew the short straw when they came across my new state of the art traps.   I'll have to hand it to them, none of them were silly enough to get caught by another one afterwards.  I was smug.  "Ha" I thought "I'll have to tell Ange there was only one."   I never saw another sign of the mice after catching the one.  I really thought I had taken care of the problem.  Then one night as I watching a movie, one came out to taunt me.  He stopped, looked right at me as if to say "Yeah that's right lady, me and my gang eat your food, poop where we want and there's nothing you can do about it."  I could see his courage waiver a bit when his revelation didn't elicit the reaction he thought it would.  No scream escaped my lips, my feet stayed firmly in place and I could see his panic rise when I narrowed my eyes.  He didn't know who he was messing with.

The challenge was on and even though I think it inhumane, the very next day I purchased 4 glue traps.  As of today, there are three less mice in the house. 

Sorry little mice but what you didn't realize is that I was once the mother to four teenage boys, that's right, four.  I thrive on challenge.