Mousing Adventures: time to get serious

I definitely had intentions of doing more than one post this week, but my evenings have been filled to the brim trying to de-mouse our house.

First things first, Francis still lives.

ugh.

 (if that doesn’t make sense to you, read this post first)

I’ll give you a run through of the week.

This week was supposed to be pretty easy. We had to take Brandon’s car to the shop after work on Monday and planned on picking it up after work on Tuesday.  That was the extent of our evening plans for the week.

Monday starts off without a hitch. We both drive to the dealership straight from work, he drops off his car, and we drive back in mine. We come home and find some traces of mouse around the base of the stove..

Great. We clean it up, eat dinner and email the landlord to give her a heads up of what’s going on.

She responds: check under the sink for holes.

Thanks, landlord.

The annoyance level gets higher every day. The mice are completely ignoring the traps we have set out for them. We don’t quite know what else to do.

Tuesday morning Brandon finds out that the car won’t be ready until Thursday night.

Alright, that’s OK, we’ll share my car for the week. I let Brandon drive it and I get dropped off and picked up at my office’s door, rather than walking a half mile like I usually have to do…I think I get the better end of this deal.

Tuesday night. Come home, mice crap on the floor. Turn on the oven for dinner, and it just smells. 

That’s it. We’re fixing this NOW.

To appease the landlord, we did look under the sink one more time to look at the holes under there, and sure enough they’re still there!

Then we go to Lowe’s.

We buy the real traps, more wire mesh, spray insulation (for those holes) and duct tape.

As for the peanut butter, we only have the natural stuff, I think the mice like the sugary stuff. So we stocked up.

A guy at work said to tie a peanut with a twist tie onto the bait so then the mouse has to stay there for a while trying to get it off and there’s more of a chance for “capture.”

We put traps under the sink and in the return grill, then we cover the return grill and all the grills in the kitchen with metal mesh and duct tape.

We are living in one classy place right now, let me tell you.

 

So besides the traps and the mesh, we also went into the basement to try and plug more holes with the spray insulation. Then we pulled out the oven (again) and found even more presents from Francis. We tilted the oven back to really try and clean everything and while I was holding it back Francis poked his head out and (probably) stuck his tongue out at us before going back inside!

ooooooh Francis…I could definitely think of other “F”  names for you….

Anyway, 6 traps baited and set, all the registers are sealed and the floor is sanitized again. Time for bed.

Wednesday we wake up to empty traps.  The peanut butter was licked clean and there sat a lone peanut tied with a twist tie. None of them worked! Still hopeful, we rebait them with no peanut. Before we leave Brandon can’t find his keys…oh no…they are locked in the basement….crap.  oh well, I have keys, we can go to work.

In the meantime we get the go ahead from the landlord to call an exterminator. Brandon calls and they can come that day around lunch time. Great! I’ll go home for it, oh wait….I don’t have a car…..Brandon will have to go. Oh wait…he doesn’t have keys…looks like we’re both going.

The exterminator came and went and we went back to work. When we came home we had trapped two mice! One in the return grill and one under the sink.

One thing we did learn from the exterminator is that mice are smart. When we set out those glasses that first night a couple weeks ago, Francis sent out his weakest men to check them out and make sure everything was good to go. And then they got trapped. Francis learned! That’s why they only worked the one night.

Even though we already trapped two more of Francis’ subjects with these spring traps, we’re still being persistent with them. Hopefully that smell of sugary peanut butter will just too much for Francis to bear and he’ll have to come out and eat some.

Until then, the mouse hunting continues…