For the last few days, we've been plagued by a rodent of some description. My wife saw some movement beside the oven early last week, although when I went to check with a torch, whatever had been there was gone.
On Thursday, I got a phone call at work that explained to me in no uncertain tones that there was indeed a mouse (too small to be a rat) in the house and was currently taking residence under the refrigerator. A large number of nocturnal bumping and knocking noises could be heard in the region of the fridge for the next two nights.
Yesterday, while grocery shopping, I picked up one of the little bad boys like in the out-of-focus camera phone picture above. Apparently the mouse trap was designed for those who want to kill a mouse but have no desire to see the end result. While my main concern was in fact prying little fingers, it was a point of view I had some sympathy with.
The trap has a little self-adhesive label on the underside which can be peeled back to allow you to place your bait (in this instance, I whacked some peanut butter in). Once you have done that, you twist the whole thing clockwise which opens up an entrance into which the rodent crawls in. When the trap is triggered, the whole thing apparently turns at speed, trapping the creature inside.
After I set the trap, we heard a few sounds like banging plastic, so we had a fair idea that the mouse was interested. As I prepared for bed (and tried to re-settle Bugalugs), my wife went in to the kitchen to get a drink of water. She arrived in time to see the mouse creep out from behind the fridge and slowly sneak in to the trap. It stayed mostly in for a while with just its tail poking out. It must have decided that the peanut butter was worth over riding natural caution because the tail disappeared. That last step was just enough to trigger the trap which snapped around into position.
I heard a few signs of life within the trap over the next half hour before all movement ceased. When I re-read the packaging, I noticed that they had gone to great lengths to not mention just what happens to the mouse or rat once it is inside the trap. I guess anyone who is too squeamish to look at a dead rat probably doesn't want to know about the nasty death that most rat poisons cause. I think in future I might just use a basic trap. I think a quickly snapped neck might be a better passing.
Of course, tonight I heard some more knocking noises from the fridge region. Mouse traps are already on the shopping list.
1 comment:
I have this thing against killing little mice. I think its because of that book, Ralph S. Mouse. He just wants to ride his motorcycle!
When I lived with my parents, my dad was (and still is) wrapped around my finger, so he would go out of his way to catch and release them still alive for me.
Which brings me to a rather funny story involving my futile attempts at saving a little brown mouse with a broom. Blog fodder!
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