On vermin: Part two

An artist’s rendering of the foul beast

Continued from last time: Exterminator patched up wall with foamy goo stuff, then laid traps. A week and a half later, traps not sprung, scratching WILL NOT STOP sweet Jesus. Oh yeah the basement seemed like a great idea until they started scratching in the walls down there. I legit Googled “are mice attracted to humans” at 3 a.m. because what the fucking fuck.

The same thing we do every night, Pinky

It’s war now, and I’m losing. Mice are nocturnal demons from hell, and these ones are first of all on to all my traps and secondly amazingly able to be most active right at the most critical part of my sleep cycle. I have seriously contemplated finding a way to have my mouse screaming recording (there’s an app for that) turn on right at noon, when the little fuckers are slumbering peacefully. Just so they can see how it feels.

Suddenly all the war movies I’ve ever seen make sense. Suicidal run out of your besieged fortress? Sign me up. If I can’t win, I’ll go down fighting.

The plan

Stopgap measure: Bought white noise app which sort of works and am planning to drink enough wine to make me vewy vewy sleepy. Long-term solution: New exterminator. One that uses poison. I read the Audubon article on secondary poisoning of birds and other predators because people friggin’ nuke their mouse problem. I won’t use the second-gen stuff that would stop an elephant. I’ll use the kinder, gentler mouse murdering solutions from the first generation of poisons. I’m a reasonable person.

If that doesn’t work: Bucket filled part way with water with convenient mouse-sized ramp. If that doesn’t work, I’ll move. To another state or possibly another country, though I suspect the mice would find me eventually.

How I feel about it all

I never thought about mice before this experience and if you had asked me if I were afraid of them I’m not sure I knew enough about them to know that EVERYONE SHOULD BE THEY ARE EVIL. I wouldn’t have said I liked them but that was before I knew how they smell like burning rubber and leave tiny shits everywhere and are so fast like so so fast and also allegedly jump all over stuff so that every rustle and creak you hear becomes an army of super-mice out to slither under your bedcovers and cuddle you in a violating manner. Also, hantavirus.

You sort of go through a process with infestation (I’ve gathered from my own experience and people’s horror stories on the interwebs), much like grief but a bit more nuanced. First, there’s denial. Nope, that’s totally not mouse shit. Nope, that scritching sound I hear couldn’t possibly be a mouse. Next, you sort of accept it but think maybe there’s a humane solution and really the problem isn’t that bad after all. Peppermint oil, the internet says. They hate that. Keeps ’em away like no one’s business. After that phase of failure comes shame. How did they get here? Why did it take me so long to notice? Why isn’t anything I’m doing helping? Next is hard, cold resolve, which typically leads to mouse death or elaborate and passionate plans for mouse death. After that is despair, because they won’t die. I assume the last phase is triumph, in which the mice finally stop haunting you or you move the fuck away. I’ve yet to experience that phase, though I pray it comes soon.