Mouse Tales

There is a mouse in my garage.

At least, I hope it is just one mouse.

We have had assorted animals in our garage over the past fifteen years, including hummingbirds, squirrels, toads, and the amusing five-lined skinks. And the neighbor's cats. We live kind of in the country and have woods and fields nearby.

None of the above have been much of a problem. The cats and squirrels quit coming in when I put the dog food and bird seed in a big Rubbermaid container.

But I do not want a mouse in my garage. Ewww...

I thought I saw one the other day skittering behind my recycle bin in the garage. Brown. Fast. Ignored. Hoped it was a skink. But they are kind of blue.

A couple days ago, I opened the door from the kitchen to the garage, and something leaped behind the freezer we keep out there. Can't ignore any longer.

Normally, this is when I would hand the problem off to DH to deal with. (All car problems, electrical problems, and extermination of vermin are assigned to him!)

Unfortunately, he is not available until next week. (Yes, brother Jeff, I probably should not be announcing such things on the Internet for the world to see.)

So, time for Jeanne to put on her Big Girl Panties and deal with mouse.

First I searched the garage for a mouse trap. (I was kind of afraid that in searching for the mouse trap, I might find the actual mouse.) Okay, found an ancient, nasty mouse trap that I picked up with a paper towel and cleaned off.

Problem: Hate to admit, I don't know how to set mousetrap, having previously assigned all such tasks to DH.

Solution: You Tube has a video for everything! Including this very funny one which I had to quit watching when it started to creep me out.

Attempt 1: Mouse wins. I set it with a nice piece of cheese behind the recycle bin. Within a half hour, the cheese was gone, the trap still set. Tested trap with pencil...SNAP!

Attempt 2: Mouse wins. Reset with cheese, but moved position of cheese. Next morning: trap still set, cheese is gone.

Attempt 3: Mouse wins. Ditto. He will probably never leave now that he is getting such good groceries, when previously all he got was what remained on any cans in the recycle bin!

Attempt 4: Remembering that when we had mice in the media center where I worked at the middle school, the custodians put down these sticky paper traps. There was one media specialist who was not grossed out by actually catching a mouse on these. She would put a cup over the mouse, carry it outside, and release it. Brilliant....I could do that. We don't have any of those sticky traps, so I took a piece of cardboard, rolled up a length of duct tape (Duct Tape Use # 2001?) and stuck it to the cardboard, and put a nice big cashew on the tape. Put near mousetrap. Result: no sign of cardboard, duct tape, or cashew in garage.

Has he dragged his little mouse self somewhere under the house while attached to cardboard?

Has he eaten cardboard as well as cashew?

Next attempt may be to purchase new traps.

Anything but actually clean out the area of debris in garage where mouse is hiding.

Now that is a truly disgusting task!