Over the years, we occasionally get mice in the house in the winter, maybe a grand total of 3 or 4. The last mouse we had was a disaster, and I am traumatized from it, so last week after finally clearing out all the donation, for sale, and dump items piling up in our living room for weeks, I was depressed when I was enjoying being back in the living room watching Indian Matchmaking (lol) and Zach reported that he saw a mouse come out of our water main "closet", right in the room we were sitting in and go under our shoe rack.
I obviously lost my wits, and we got lucky that after probably hearing me scream and shout, the mouse pretty quickly ran back in there. So now it was time to hermetically seal the area off. I have been meaning to change the panel to a more easy to open door for a while, because if we actually had a water emergency we'd have to get out the toolbox to take the panel off which is stupid. So it's been sitting kind of ajar for a while which is my fault. Regardless, I wouldn't go near it, and Zach is brave with the mouse but not with the toolbox, so I directed him what to do and where to find things in between singing on the couch for the mouse to go away. I mean he was at ground zero, I didn't want the mouse to try to pop out at him while he was at work.
Then Zach had the A+ idea to seal off the panel with tape to really make sure the mouse couldn't come back out of there (because the construction of this panel is really a joke and barely attached to anything in the first place), so we may incur thousands of extra dollars in water damage getting that thing off if anything were to happen, but it's worth it for a 0-mouse living room.
I was very aware that this probably wasn't the last we had seen of the mouse, and the next day I checked our poison bait station we leave out under the kitchen cart as a mouse indicator, and noticed that it was half eaten. Nooooo
So now I am on high alert and won't go into the kitchen after 8pm when it gets dark, because the next night I was about to grab an apple and saw it run under the oven. I don't even want to look up the diseases that mice could carry that you don't want to see during pregnancy. For dinner I'm sous chefing in the dining room and standing sentry at the entrance of the kitchen for Zach while he makes gourmet meals at the stove. One night I did observe with my keen eye the mouse come out from under the fridge and I alerted him immediately. I don't understand how he can keep his blood pressure under control with his back turned to something that might touch his foot or something. Although I'm sorry to report for the PETA people out there that he does keep his shoes on sometimes in case he has the chance to stomp it 😯 he's like a primitive hunter with these things, one time in high school a friend had a mouse at their house and he apparently tried to hunt it down with a hatchet. Normally I want to be at peace with the animals but for this, I'm kind of proud? Rodent hunter is unfortunately not a contribution I can make to our household.
I didn't see the mouse at all last night (I do peer my head around the corner often trying to catch it) so maybe it's gone. Regardless I'm worried that this summer mouse portends a rough winter. If the mouse comes out after doglet arrives I actually might have to take up the hatchet too. Luckily Bob got us one for our wedding (not on our registry but so on theme with all the other REI stuff) so more than ready 😤
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