Hard to Sleep

[liralen]

After catching the mouse on Friday, John had left the trap in the same place, just in case...

... and last night, in my sleep, I thought I dreamed of a snap, a lot of squeaking, and then plastic rattling around, but far away and faint through the closed door. But then it wasn't a dream, and I kept getting woken up by tiny squeaking and rattling, downstairs. Sounded like mouse hell. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore, and woke up John and asked him, nicely, to deal with it. I imagine that when he's gone I'll have to deal with it myself, but for now I'd take advantage of my great fortune.

Turned out that the trap had caught the mouse by a hind foot. So John took it outside and let it go and it ran off. Seemed only right to let it go instead of doing something like trying to kill it, when it seemed to be moving okay even with what's probably a broken leg.

Turns out that with all the rain and lush grass the mouse population around here has exploded. I just don't really want to have to keep doing this, but with the weather gradually sliding to cool, I guess we'll have to.

Comments

[candle-light.livejournal.com]

Have you tried non-kill traps? They are little boxes with doors that swing inwards so it's easy for the mouse to get in, but very hard for them to get out. You bait them with peanut butter. Of course, you need to release them away from the house or they'll just come back... The nice thing is no injured-but-not-dead mice, but you do have to check them once or twice a day.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

We did try that a while back, but we started to see the same mice, over and over again, even when we released them in a field that was couple of blocks from the house...

[liralen.livejournal.com]

But thinking about it... I may have to just try them again if this is going to be an on-going concern this fall... there's much to be said for not killing them at all. They are so darned brave.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

For relatively quick and painless death to rodentia, get a rat zapper ... very effective for mice, not quite as much for rats (which are cowardly beasts).

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Oooo!! Thank you! I appreciate the pointer, very much.

[archangelbeth]

The cats seem to do a pretty good job of intimidating the mice, most of the time. We had a brief period of time when they got in a lot, and now they are not bothering. (We may get more when it's cold again. Dunno.) Perhaps a cat? O:>

[liralen.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I'm tremendously allergic to cats. I love cats, but my body seems to really dislike them...

[archangelbeth]

Awwww!

Ferret?

[that-david.livejournal.com]

Brings to mind a cat I met in grad school (the cat "owned" one of my friends). The cat in question was an old, wheezy, and exceptionally sweet cat named Tigger. Tigger absolutely loved people, but was horridly allergic to them. So the poor old cat would settle in your lap, purr, and eventually end up wheezing and purring in roughly equal measure.