Redundancy

Interesting Mouse Fact: Mice are considered to be color blind (http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/HouseMice.asp).

Death Toll has risen to 5

Redundancy

Well, once again we have committed a homicide.  Geoffrey had set the traps in our pantry again on Saturday night because of our encounter with the baby mouse.  I also had spotted what looked to be some droppings on the floor so it was back into battle for the Higgins Family.   Geoffrey loaded the traps with peanut butter since that had worked so well the last time we tried it.  He decided to put two traps in the pantry since this has been such a hotspot of activity.  Yesterday morning, he went in to check the traps.  Both traps were empty of peanut butter but had not been sprung.  Many of you have met my husband and know there is nothing he enjoys more then a mechanical problem to be solved.  He immediately launched into a examination of the workings of the traps and discovered that the flaps that hold the bait were stuck.  They could not push down enough to spring the traps.  Geoffrey did some sort of mechanical messing and fixed this problem.  Last night, he set the traps again with peanut butter.  He has decided that the battle strategy he will employ now will be called "Redundancy."  Redundancy means that he will have two traps set very near to each other so that if one fails, the other may be successful.  General Eisenhower, General McArthur, General Patton, did you employ Redundancy?  Or is my husband something of a military genius?  I may have to agree with the latter question because this morning, we achieved victory.  We walked into the pantry and both traps were flipped over and sprung.  One was empty of peanut butter and did not have a little mouse attached.  However, the second trap was full.  Tonight we will once again employ Redundancy and hope for the same if not better results.  The war may not ever end but battle by battle, we are hopeful. Stick with me people, the journey continues.

Interesting Mouse Fact: House mice were probably the reason for domesticating cats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_mouse).

Death Toll has risen to 4

Oh Baby

We have not had the need to set traps for a while since we haven't been seeing any evidence of mouse activity within our living spaces.  The creepy crawling happening in our attic space is still something that I have not been brave enough to tackle.  However, despite the lack of trap setting, we have increased our death toll.  Thursday morning I was getting ready to go to work (finally mending from a wonderful battle against strep throat - I told you, biological warfare!).  My closet is actually part of the master bathroom in this house.  I was standing in front of the closet door trying to decide what to wear to keep warm in these harsh California winters.  

I have to stop here and mention a quick side story.  This particular closet is large enough to need two sliding doors - a full wall closet.  However, due to an unfortunate incident many years ago, the closet is missing one of its mirrored doors.  My sister, the agile thing that she is, was using the bathroom to try an new somersault style flip she was mastering.  She decided on this location because she wanted to watch her form while performing the stunt.  The problem that exists with many mirrors is clearly stated on most car mirrors - things are closer than they appear.  This was definitely the case when my sister flipped her body head over heels and crashed right into the mirror door.  Sister 1, mirror 0.  I now have one sliding closet door.

Back to the death toll story.  I was looking for a sweater when I noticed something. On the floor, just inside the track on the now single door, was a bit of grey fluff.  What caught my attention was the fact that the fluff was moving very slowly across the carpet.  When I bent down to investigate I realized it was a very tiny and young baby mouse.  I have looked up images of mice at various ages and my best guess is that this one was about two weeks old.  It didn't have its eyes open but it did have all of its fur.  I called in my exterminator (aka Geoffrey) to take a look and of course both of my kids had to offer up their observations (I have always believed my children are born scientists).  The baby was not moving very fast and appeared to be in pretty bad shape.  Geoffrey got a towel and picked up the not-so-healthy baby mouse. Before he could take it too far, I did snap a photo since that baby mouse was one of the cutest things we had ever seen.  Geoffrey took it outside and let it go.  However, when he returned that evening, the baby mouse had not moved.  We don't think it was supposed to be away from its other yet and so Geoffrey moved if further out to the field and let nature take its course.   Below is the picture I snapped before we had to say goodbye to the little mouse. 

 

The question I am left with, of course, is where is the momma mouse and how many mouse siblings remain? Tonight, traps are being set.

Interesting mouse fact: Mice like to eat 15 -20 times each day (http://www.pestworldforkids.org/mice.html).

Death Toll Remains at 3

Food Storage Woes

So, we have had a nice lull in the mice activities in recent days.  For the most part, I am able to place food in our pantry with minimal concern over it being shared by our furry friends.  It seems to be the sugar or pasta that they enjoy most.  This adventure into the world of pest control has caused me to reexamine the way I approach food storage.  Over the years I have owned multiple sets of canisters.  They seem to be the item that gets passed on to me from a wide variety of family members.  For the most part they have just cluttered up my storage areas.  When I got married, I picked out a set of stainless steel ones that I really liked and have had them tucked away in the corner of the pantry for over seven years.  My problem with canisters is not that I don't want to use them, but rather I put something in them and completely forget it exists.  A good example was a head of garlic I placed in a canister which had one of those tops that sealed up.  It was forgotten for I don't know how many weeks.  The smell that came out of that jar when I opened to see what was inside was not something I would wish for anyone to experience.  Rotten garlic could be used in police raids, seriously.  

Most of my sets of canisters were sent to charity when we decided to move into this house.  I admit now that this was a huge mistake.  Since living here, I have come to realize why people need these decorative jars and am kicking myself for getting rid of so many.  I am down to only the four stainless steal jars and they are just not enough.  I have found I need a canister for all of the following items: pasta, sugar (granulated/powdered/brown), flour, tea bags, hot chocolate packets, nuts, rice and the list goes on.  So, a lesson learned - never throw away a canister because the mice will know.  It is a weakness they will exploit. 

List Company

I said that we have had a lull but the activity has be no means been nonexistent.  If anyone saw the movie I Don't Know How She Does It, you will remember the scene where they discuss "the list" women frequently review when they should be sleeping at 2:30 in the morning.  As a full time working mom, I am by no means immune to "the list."  This list is the time when we women lay in bed and review all of the things we haven't done, are stressed out about, and the many things others are expecting of us.  I am not new to this activity but I have found that now I have company.  Many nights I wake up around 2:30/3:00am and start going over my list.  As I lay there, I start to hear "t,t,t,t,t,t," above my head.  It is the lovely sound of rodent feet scurrying around in my attic.  Now what is interesting about this is we have not seen any mouse droppings or witnessed any food smuggling happening in our kitchen/pantry for some time.  My questions are what is up there and what are they eating?  Now being the brave soul that I am, I have no desire to look up into the crawl space to see what the creature is that scurries throughout the night.  My fear is that I won't like what I discover, especially after the Bonnie/rat incident. This scurrying sounds is of course another item that goes on my "list."

A Thought: if mice are awake mostly at night and women do "the list" at that time, do female mice stress about their lives at 2:00 in the afternoon?  Do we interrupt them with our scurrying down below?  Interesting.

Interesting Mouse Fact: Mice are not able to vomit (http://www.pestworldforkids.org/mice.html)

Death toll remains at 3 for mice...explanation to follow

Well, its been a few weeks since my last post but there is an excellent reason for the lapse in my writing.  The major reason is that I am now 100% certain that our vermin friends are waging chemical and biological warfare on my family.  In the last two weeks two various members of our family (myself included) have had near pneumonia, ear infections, flu symptoms, sinus problems, etc.  All of this happens to coincide with the start of our battle against our beasts.  Coincidence?  Perhaps but perhaps not.  If any of you are familiar with the writings of Douglas Adams you know that mice are assumed to be the most intelligent beings on earth.  I am beginning to agree with Mr. Adams' assertions. 

The Relatives

As I stated above, I feel the need to explain our death toll.  We have personally killed three mice. There has been one additional casualty I feel I must mention since I have felt for a while that we are battling more than just mice in our house.  My mother has a dog named Bonnie who roams freely around the property.  Bonnie is not the best at catching animals, she usually leaves that task to her partner/fellow dog Buck.  Bonnie is a bit loud and her run can only be described as more of a lumbering action.  Buck on the other hand is extremely agile and fast.  He also understands the value of stealth.  When Buck and Bonnie find a squirrel or other furry creature, they will dig at whatever hole the animal runs into with great enthusiasm and patience.  The problem Buck is constantly faced with is Bonnie's inability to shut up.  Buck digs and listens while Bonnie digs and barks - loudly.  Common sense tells us that if one is barking loudly while in pursuit of a very small subterranean creature, loud sounds will not help that animal to want to resurface.  Buck gets this, Bonnie does not.  So occasionally Buck is able to hunt solo and is usually very successful.  When he returns with his finds, Bonnie usually steals the dead creature and bites him if he tries to retrieve it.  This episode I am about to relay more than likely followed this pattern.  

I drove home from work on Friday and parked in my usual spot under one of our many trees.  As I was standing outside (weather in the 80's by the way) talking to my Dad I noticed Bonnie.  She was frantically trying to dig something out from under my car.  (As a side note, the car I drive many days is an 80's Porche which sits very low to the ground and is a piece of junk in my opinion - yet another blog I could write on my husbands' and my inability to agree on cars. Bright side is it gets great mileage.)  Back to the story.  Bonnie is laying down, trying to squeeze under the car and I knew she wanted something.  I leaned down and there under the car was a very large dead rat.  The tail alone looked to be 10" long.  Bonnie finally freed her treasure out from under the car and proceeded to carry it around all weekend. 

When I saw what the dogs had caught and how big the rat was, my worry that there is more hiding in the recesses of our house greatly increased.  My dad explained that the oat hay he is feeding the cows can really attract rats.  The cows get fed within yards of our house so it looks like we are now on watch for larger droppings that just the mouse kind.  Oh joy. 

Interesting Mouse Fact: Mice can jump up to 12 inches from the floor onto a flat surface (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7483.html)

Death toll: 3

We had a clear kill yesterday by trying a suggestion of using peanut butter instead of cheese.  Wham!  Another beastie departs this world.  All three mice we have  caught by trap have been in the pantry.  This seems to be a hub for mice activity.  We set the same trap again with peanut butter but this morning, no mouse. 

When I went to grab Cheerios out of the pantry for breakfast this morning, my dog Buddy ran into the pantry.  He found the trap, snapped it, then proceeded to eat the peanut butter.  I am beginning to think maybe when the cheese was stolen earlier this week, it may have been a 60 pound Australian Shepherd instead of a 4 oz field mouse who braved the trap and escaped unscathed.  I wonder how long Buddy's luck will hold before his tongue or nose meets with a different fate.  Note to self, make sure the pantry door is close tight.

Mouse Salad
Although we have a death toll of 3, there is one more mouse that did enter our battle.  One early morning, about three weeks ago, I was sitting eating breakfast at our table.  Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw movement.  I looked to the right and didn't see anything immediately.  Then out of a dark corner under my cabinets, a little mouse ran right in front of me, paused, looked at me, then continues into a hole under the trash compactor.  I had never noticed this hole and on closer inspection, I saw that the little invaders had nibbled quite an opening in the rubber flap on the bottom of the broken machine.  If you are wondering why we have broken trash compactor, I have no answer other then why waste money on such things?  If it eases your mind, I do still use it as a regular trash can, we just are foregoing the compacting.


Back to the mouse.  This little mouse was interesting to me because he did not seem in any hurry.  In fact, I would venture to say that he sauntered in his mousy fashion along the cabinet.  It is very insulting when the mice become brazen. Now, I have no proof that this is the same mouse but later that night after I had gone to bed, Geoffrey was bagging up the trash for the next day.  He had set the trash bag on the counter near the back wall. All of a sudden, out ran a little mouse.  He encountered a road block where he normally would have had free reign along the counter.  Geoffrey saw his chance to battle this home invasion man to mouse.  He quickly grabbed a salad bowl (a wedding gift I might add so if that guest is reading, I apologize)  and trapped the mouse on the counter.  He then used his free hand to grab a pizza box from the trash.  The salad bowl was then slid on top of the pizza box, little mouse safely inside.  


Needless to say, Geoffrey was feeling very proud of himself.  So proud in fact that he needed to share is accomplishment.  The next moments are vague for me because, as I said, I was already asleep.  What I remember is hearing,"Babe, I caught the mouse!" I sleepily looked up from my pillow and saw Geoffrey standing over me, pizza box/salad bowl/mouse in hand.  "What?" I said. "I caught the mouse!" He said again. His face was boyishly excited.  Unfortunately for him, I simply put my head down and went back to sleep.  


The next morning I couldn't really tell if what I had seen and been told was real or if I had been dreaming.  An understandable confusion when one considers the image Geoffrey presented at my bedside.  So I asked him to verify and yes, all that I thought I had seen had happened. He filled in the remaining details of his capture and the follow up.  Geoffrey had taken the mouse outside into the field and turned him loose.  My one question was, "Did you clean the salad bowl?"  Score one for man to mouse combat.

Interesting mouse fact:

Mice are considered a delicacy in eastern Zambia and northern Malawi (Wikipedia).

Death toll remains at 2

Oven Lovin'

So, yesterday I relayed a story about our oven and the death chamber it became for one unsuspecting mouse.  The story of  ovens doesn't stop with that execution. That exact oven broke several years ago and has been replaced. 

For this story we need to return to early January of this year.  We had been moving in over a few weeks and were starting to settle in.  By the end of January we realized there were some home improvement jobs which would happen much faster if we resorted to bribery.  A friend of ours was called in to assess what could be done with a few projects (hanging/fitting doors - that kind of thing).  We offered to cook dinner in exchange for this labor.  Since we are each a family of four with kids almost the exact same age and very close friends, a little get together sounded very nice.  As anyone out there who has ever moved a family knows,  that first planned event at the new house is a nice way to force yourself to finish organizing and making the place feel more home-like.  So we invited them over for a play date and dinner.  

This dinner turned out to be the first time I had the opportunity to cook in our "new" oven.  It turned on without trouble and everything seemed to work fine.  The menu was not exactly gourmet - it consisted of frozen pizza and salad. The pizza needed to cook at 400 degrees.  As we stood in the kitchen drinking a much needed glass of wine and catching up each others lives, we started to become distracted by a very unpleasant smell.  The stench was growing stronger as the oven heated up.  It was once again coming from the oven.  Now, as I made clear in my last post, I am very familiar with the smell of decaying animals and this wasn't exactly that particular scent.  My friend who I was drinking/talking with happens to be a veterinarian and she did comment that the smell was definitely animal based.  We didn't do much about it that night because our social activities were more fun and entertaining.  Oh, have no fear, my friend does not drink wine while doing her veterinarian duties.

As the days went by we became more and more disgusted by the smell that wafted through the kitchen whenever we used the oven.  Geoffrey and I looked all around and did not see any evidence of a dead animal.  We decided that we needed to dig a little deeper.  Geoffrey pulled the oven out and started dismantling the back panels.  No dead-anything was in there but what we did find was almost worse.  Inside your oven, surrounding the metal box housing the oven, there is a lining of insulation.  What we learned that night is mice LOVE oven insulation.  Covering the entire oven housing was a think coat of mice urine and poop.  The insulation was initially white but after the mice finished with it, it became a lovely shade of yellow.   On the top of the oven housing, just beneath the cook top, were two very clear mouse nests.  By the looks of things, mice lived, loved, and made little mice pups in our oven.

Okay, Geoffrey and I consider ourselves fairly capable do-it-yourselfers (when you're broke most of the time, DIY becomes much more of a necessity).  We thought, "We can fix this!"   I started a little internet research and discovered we were not alone.  Apparently many people have mice infestations in their ovens. According to what I read, you can replace the insulation if you can get a hold of some.  At this time, we have contacted every major hardware store and home DIY chain but no one carries this special type of insulation.  Mice have exclusive tastes.  

To wrap up, we are still living with a mice pee/poop encased oven and avoiding all recipes that require baking.  As a girl who fancies herself a novice foodie and a lover of cooking, this is a very limiting reality.  Luckily my mother has two ovens and lives 30 yards away.  Anyone know of anyone who sells mice-approved oven insulation? Or can one wash insulation?  Hmmm...

Interesting mouse fact: Baby mice are called pups with the average litter size being 10-12 (from Wikipedia).

Current Death Toll: 2
I will be updating the number of mice that perish in our house.  If anyone has a reasonable suggestion of how to dispose/rid the house of mice, I will try it out and report on the results. How good at pest control are all of you??

In that vane, here is how each of the two mice met their demise:
The first was 3 days ago.  This mouse fell victim to my first ever loaded/set mouse trap.  The trap was set out in the pantry where the mice had been into the dog food.  I of course did not dispose of the mouse but rather ran to my husband, Geoffrey, for assistance which he most graciously provided.   


The second was this morning.  This mouse met a very different fate.  Yesterday morning I woke to find the pantry mouse trap sprung with the cheese gone.  No mouse was anywhere to be seen.  This morning, I went to check the same trap and not only was the cheese gone, so was the trap.  Very strange.  I then happened to glance to my left and saw the trap partially wedged under the door leading to the laundry room.  Sticking out from the snapped trap/dangerous end was a mouse tail.  The whole thing was wiggling.  When I discovered this, so did our dog Honey.  She became very interested in this moving mouse trap and quickly decided this warranted close monitoring.  Once again, I did what I do best and when to ask Geoffrey for help (in case you haven't caught on, I am something of a chicken). After about 10 minutes, my husband dragged himself out of bed (the difficulties with getting my husband out of bed could be extensively explored in another blog) and he opened the laundry room door.  Sure enough, quite a large field mouse was attached to the trap by its tail.  When Geoffrey picked up the trap, Honey immediately bit the mouse.  Sadly for the mouse, this did not kill it but rather only added to its misery.  Geoffrey took the mouse outside and opened the trap.  At this point, Honey took a look at the mouse on the ground and ate it.

"Uh oh, something died."
As a woman who grew up in a very rural setting, I have had the opportunity to become very familiar with the strong odor associated with decomposition.  Anyone who lives or has lived among the wildlife has had the wonderful experience of walking into a house and saying, "Uh oh, something died."  One such moment happened approximately 20 years ago when I was still in high school.  

My mother, sister, and I walked into our kitchen one afternoon(the kitchen I now cook in on a daily basis) and were inundated with the wonderful smell of decomp.  If you have never smelled this, count your blessings/lucky stars/any other fortunate symbol because it is unpleasant to say the least - imagine what death might smell like and then add on rotten milk. The three of us tried to narrow down where the offending order was coming from and all of us zeroed in on the oven.  Great.  

My mother, being by far the bravest of us three, decided to start a closer investigation.  She looked in the cook top and inside the oven.  Luckily for our cooking needs, neither of these areas presented a dead body.  Next on the list was the broiler drawer under the oven.  Again, no dead bodies were present but when the drawer was opened, the smell became nauseating.  Definitely getting warmer (no pun intended).  We removed the drawer and looked under the oven.  Thwarted again it seemed but my mother decided to get a flashlight to be certain (good thinking since the smell was making our eyes water).  When my mother shined the flashlight under the oven, we finally discovered the origin of the decomp smell.  Way in the back of the oven, on the far left corner sat an electrical box.  This box was screwed shut on each side but the corners had small openings.  Out of one of these openings we saw a long skinny tail - a mouse had been electrocuted.  


The three of us looked at each other and thought, "What do we do now?"  Once again, my mother came up with the solution.  She went to a drawer and took out a pair of tongs.  Then she got a screw driver and undid one of the screws on the electrical box.  For those safety conscious of you out there, no we didn't think to turn off the electricity but since I am writing about mice and not the loss of a family member, no one but the mouse received an electrical shock.  Either my sister or I (can't remember after all of these years) used the screwdriver to widen the opening in the box, the other held the flashlight, and my mother pried a decomposing mouse out of our oven's electrical box.  Yes, there was fluid.  At this point, I stopped looking and have no more to report other than my mother did dispose of the mouse is some way outside. The decomposition smell had been found and dealt with.  Oh, the tongs?  I have no memory of what became of the tongs.  My sincerest hope is that my mother threw them out with the mouse but I really just don't know...