A little mousy

Our house has been invaded. While watching a movie a couple of Friday nights ago, I saw some movement from the corner of my eye. A turn of my head revealed a brash little rodent, trying to make a not-so-stealthy relocation. I reacted as any mature adult, who doesn't want to wake her sleeping children would, by saying, "Mouse. Mouse. Mouse," increasingly louder and with a higher pitch, until I roused Jeff from his nightly pre-bed nap. (And, it goes without saying that I simultaneously pulled my feet up onto the chair!) I most certainly DID want to wake him up! As it was after 11, and there was nothing that could be done about it at that time, we went to bed, with me feeling certain I would be eaten in my sleep or that we would all die of the plague before morning. After allowing myself a moment to just be completely grossed out, I declared war on the disgusting little creature, not yet knowing about his other little friends lurking in the nooks and crannies. Now, if you are all green and animal rightsy, you may want to just stop reading now, because the first thing I did the next morning was to march my disgusted self down to the hardware store for some mouse poison. I am happy for mice to live long and peaceful lives in their natural environment, but I am not the least bit happy to have them do so in mine! I strategically and cautiously place child-resistant poison traps all around the lower floor of the house, making sure little people could not get them. And then, I waited for the death count to begin. Instead, I saw (and heard!) two--and Max saw one--more that were very much alive. I assumed they weren't eating the poison because they were still able to gain access to the pantry somehow. So, off we went to the hardware store again--for a different kind of poison and some steel wool. And, yesterday afternoon, the kids and I emptied the entire pantry, finding LOTS of evidence of our unwelcome little visitors. I thought I was going to puke. The good news is: my pantry has probably never been so clean. Every surface has been disinfected and every package of anything that even might have been open was tossed. We found a couple of places in there where we thought they might be getting in, so we plugged up those holes with the steel wool. Jeff's thought was that if a child couldn't get in to the poison, that it might be hard for a mouse to get into it, too, so we stopped playing around and put out something that should tell any mouse in the vicinity that we mean business. (And, of course, we put these in child-unfriendly locations). (I am secretly loving how clean and organized my pantry is now, but don't you dare tell any of the mice that)! Finally, we blocked the bottom of the pantry door with a towel, just to make sure there was no entering or exiting of the premises. I didn't see or hear anything from the mouse population last night, so I'm not sure if they have given up and decided to leave the house the way they came or if they are gathering the troops for a more serious attack. But, trust me, I will not rest (seriously!) until they are eradicated.