Mice

If you have never had mice in your house or in your garage, thank your lucky stars!!! My first mouse encounter was in Germany. While my husband was in the country we had no problems. However once he deployed to Iraq for the second time, it was as if a beacon was sent around the county or at least it was beamed into the field by our house, "Come one, Come all, a woman is on her own with a small child." I went into our detached garage one day to get something and discovered little black pellets. Let me tell you once there have been little black pellets in your life, you will never look at debris the same way. Just a second ago I found a black crumb next to the keyboard and had to analyze it to make sure that there had not been a mouse computer party. Back to the garage. The mice were into everything. Basically they'd made the garage into a boom town. They'd made a nest in the bike trailer that I used to pull H. around town in. I'd made the mistake of leaving a lolly pop in the trailer. It was disgusting. My husband's golf bag had become the local Mouse Motel. Some mice were running a bar out of one of my husband's boots. Totally Gross. I completely and totally FREAKED out. I admit it, I lost it. I put H. to bed for a nap. I grabbed rubber gloves and garbage bags. I threw everything away. Everything. I didn't even ask before I threw my husband's golf bag away. I borrowed a neighbor's truck and tossed everything they pooped on. Some things I cleaned. I scrubbed my husband's golf clubs and anything else that could take being bleached. Thankfully I could retreat into the house and be safe from the GERMS. Incidentally I used D-con because the mice were out in the garage, just be forewarned, the mice will poop green pellets before they die.
Fast forward to Fall of 2005, I started noticing these little black pellets in almost every room. To my horror, we had mice inside the house. Talk about crawly skin, freak out feelings, I thought I was going to go nuts. One evening I was cooking for a bake sale, when I saw a flash of a tale. Fortunately I was able to catch the little buggers using glue traps. Late one night my husband and I were in bed, he was sleeping soundly while I watched late night tv. Sure enough I start hearing screeching and scratching. After everyone was in bed I would place traps in front of every one's door. S. was only four or five months, and H. was about 2 1/2 so they were both in cribs. To my horror I realized that if I needed to get to either child I would have to *gasp* step over a mouse stuck in a glue trap. Holy moly, there was absolutely no way that was going to happen, not to mention the fact that the poor creature (only now can I say poor creature, at the time in my mind the had horns and evil leers) was screeching loudly. So I woke my husband up even though he had to get up at four, I woke him up. He got up and disposed of the creature, thank goodness he is such a good husband, he has to be to put up with my insanity. After several months of catching H. and I. (husband) in the traps, we finally got rid of them all. At least I think.
So this past summer I started thinking of offensive strikes. I was not about to be infiltrated by the nasty buggers again, oh no, I was going to strike first. I knew that I could not use poison, which would have been the easiest thing to use, but not with children around. So I bought an ultrasonic device. Not sure if it works, but we seem to be mouse free this year. I was contemplating the purchase of red fox urine, because the red fox is a natural predator of the house mouse. I thought long and hard and googled every aspect I could think of. Finally I decided against the urine because I was afraid that I would attract the natural predator of the red fox. We live close to a nature preserve and it wasn't a far stretch to imagine bears and cougars knocking on the door asking for reservations at Chez Fox. So I bought something else entirely, a mouse repellent that you put around plants in the backyard. Well, I should have googled the ingredients on the label first, but I was desperate, it was getting to be mouse season and I was about a month from giving birth to our third boy C. So I step outside and shake this stuff all around the foundation of the house. Not smart, not a good idea, because the main ingredient was naphthalene, yes oh yes, mothballs. So within minutes the entire house smells like mothballs. So I googled naphthalene and of course come upon a laundry list of horrible side effects from smelling mothballs, nasal cancer being one of them. So in my pregnancy induced insanity I send my husband to the store for a bag of charcoal because it was Sunday night and everything was closed I knew the odds of getting activated charcoal would be slim. While he was gone I used the hose to dilute the pellets with water. When he returned we went around the house depositing charcoal. My husband held the bag and I placed charcoal, mainly because I didn't like his charcoal placement, he was tossing haphazardly and I just knew that if we were going to get rid of the odor the charcoal had to be on top of the pellets. By the next day the odor was gone, thank heavens. Now, can you imagine being our neighbors and looking out your window and seeing a woman 9 months pregnant placing charcoal all around the house??
Long story short, I do not like mice.