I AWAKENED HOPEFUL this morning. Hoping the mouse that ran into the living room Sunday evening, scurrying into a corner behind a floor lamp when I screamed, was trapped. Dead. That did not happen.
We awakened Monday morning to two unsprung traps still baited with fresh peanut butter. One in the basement, the other between the stove and cupboard.
Have I mentioned that mice terrify me? Or maybe, more accurately, that I am terrified of mice. I detest, hate, abhor them. Always have. I recognize it’s rather ridiculous to be afraid of mice given my size compared to theirs. But they are quick and creepy and varmints I do not want inside my space.
So there I was Sunday evening, feet up in the recliner, semi-watching the 9 pm news between reading Minnesota author Lindsay Starck’s terrifying novel, Monsters We Have Made, when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A mouse. Eeeek! I screamed, grabbed my phone, shot to the bedroom, slammed the door and climbed onto the bed. Rats. I forgot my book.
But at least I could Google “why mice come into your house in the summer” while Randy tracked the mouse. Apparently when the temps are as hot as they are now, they, too, want to cool off. Just as in winter, they want to be warm. I can’t fault them for that thinking. Do mice even think?
As I hunkered atop the bed, I felt hopeful that Randy would find and kill the mouse. I didn’t think that through. How? With his bare hands? Randy observed the mouse hurry behind the fridge. So he moved the fridge. We haven’t seen it since. But he did catch a mouse in the garage overnight. Same mouse? Highly unlikely.
We live in an old house, next to a wooded hillside, with lots of entry points for mice. So I expect mice and we have caught many in our 40 years living here. Typically, though, they stay in the dark basement. I never invited them onto the main floor. The neighborhood mice apparently did not get the warning memo to stay out. They are risking their lives.
Now why do I detest mice? It started with the scritch-scratch of mice running inside the bedroom walls of my childhood farmhouse. Mice in the house. Mice in the barn. Mice in the hay and straw bales. Mice in the granary. Even with a passel of roaming cats.
In college, I opened a silverware drawer to see a mouse staring up at me.
When I was nearly third trimester pregnant with my youngest, I awakened to pee in the middle of the night at my in-law’s farmhouse. There, in that tiny closed bathroom, a mouse circled. Screaming drew no one to my rescue. Eventually, I climbed onto the edge of the bathtub, tossed a pile of wet towels on the mouse and fled upstairs to my sleeping husband. True story.
Years later, I reached into the sink one morning to empty water from a crockpot left soaking there overnight. Atop the water floated a dead mouse. Enough to scare anyone, especially me. At least it was dead, the sole consolation. I slammed the lid on the crockpot, carried it outside and Randy dealt with it after work. That crockpot never cooked another meal.
Yes, I have experienced mouse trauma. Too often. Traps are set. Should I see the mouse again this evening, I will be sure to grab Monsters We Have Made before sequestering myself in my bedroom to read before dreaming nightmares of monstrous, uncaught mice.
TELL ME: Are you afraid of mice? Any mouse stories to share? Or cats to share?
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Oh ! Such perfect timing for your Mouse in the House story to land in my inbox. On the second day of returning to our house from a three-week summer vacation, I saw a mouse scurry under the fridge! Luckily the cat did her job as the next morning the fat lifeless body of the mouse was found in the kitchen. But where there is one, there are more…so we’ve had a succession of the little critters paying us visits. Very short ones as the cat has been quite sufficient! Thankfully. While I, too, grew up on a farm in Minnesota, I, too, abhor those varmints. Why? They conjure up images of pestilence bubonic plague hantavirus disease, you name it! Gives me the heebie jeebies just writing about it! Anyway, thank you for your stories ! I really enjoy them.
Argh. I’m so sorry you have mice, too, Kathleen. But that you have a cat to catch them is a good thing. Here’s to no more mice in either of our homes, once I catch mine. Thank you for appreciating my stories.
mouse trauma for sure but with all those incidents i can see why:). i totally am with u in that!!! kg
Yeah, I don’t know too many people who like mice.
0h yes Audrey-when I was a little boy, our large family had a garden & strawberry patch west of the house, just beyond the farm grove. Your grandpa, your dad, your uncle Mike and me were going to move beehives closer to the strawberries. When my brothers moved some beehives a mouse ran out and straight up my pants leg! Your dad sternly told me to stand still so he could see the mouse move inside my pants. TRY THAT ONCE!! He saw it move and with his hand he squeezed it and it dropped out of my pantleg stone dead!! HONEST STORY!!
Your Uncle
Oh, my, I cannot imagine how you could stand still. I would have been jumping, screaming. But here’s a story for you, just so you know that what goes around comes around. One time, while working in the barn, a mouse ran up my dad’s pant leg. I don’t recall if he killed it, I just recall the incident and how much Dad hated mice. But he never shared your pant leg story. This is the stuff of family lore and I appreciate your passing it along.
We’ve never had a mouse 🐁 problem in any of our houses. Or, if we did, they kept a real low profile. Which is good because none of our cats over the years have shown much interest in mousing – chasing a rodent would have interfered with their naps. 🙄 The LovedOne, who is opposed to killing anything (except wasps), did manage to drown a mouse outside in her liquid fertilizer mixture. It was my job – as the resident funeral director – to dispose of the body.
Thanks for infusing some humor into this topic today by calling yourself “resident funeral director.” Randy plays that role in our household. When he was in Indiana for our son’s graduation from Purdue in May 2023 and I was unable to travel due to my severe long COVID symptoms, a mouse was caught in a trap in the basement. What to do? I called a friend. Steve stopped after church to play funeral director and reset the trap. What a saint!
Many years ago,I was preparing to go to work, and 2 of my girls were preparing for school, the others had already gone to school, when I noticed my cat in the living room in a ready to leap pose. So I checked to see what she was so excited about. She had this tiny mouse trapped! I called the girls to come out of their room to see the action. Well, the cat sat for a few seconds to just watch the mouse. Then the mouse moved, which excited the cat, so she reached out with her cute little paw right on the mouses back. Then. it was cat and mouse for a short while. I think kitty was tiring of this, and I was afraid the girls would be late for school, and late to work for me. So on the next mouse move, kitty just bit the head off that poor little mouse, and left the clean up job for me. That was the last experience I had with the Cat in The House!!!!
That’s quite a story. My reaction would have been vastly different than yours, meaning you are much braver than me in the presence of mice. And then to have that mess to clean up. Yuck! Good to hear from you, Norma.
This reminded me of a story I wrote for my girlfriend, back when I was in highschool. I haven’t thought about it for awhile. And I don’t remember it at all except the title…A Mouse in the House…way before computers! HA Hope you catch the critter.
Well, then, I stole your story title and didn’t even know it. Yup, hoping we catch the elusive mouse soon. Three traps baited and waiting.
I really understand this. when we lived in our first house, it was on an acre of land with fields around it. when a mouse would happen to travel in to my house, I would take a deep breath and tell my daughters that we were having a ‘mouse contest’ and each would have a small box to try to catch it and put it outside again. there were many giggles and the sound of little feet running, (girls, not mice), and it was always a happy ending. so happy I didn’t have to deal with it, and they had fun and were happy to rescue a mouse )
Kudos to you and your girls for that approach to dealing with mice. I couldn’t do it. 🙂
I tried not to make them afraid like I was
That is a good strategy as a parent. I used that plan too with other fears I have, but not with mice.
Three of mother’s sisters were on the farm, 2 we collected eggs and cow barns…with mice. yuck I volunteer at Caring for Cats in No. St. Paul who partners with your Fur Farm, incredible place. Be glad to help! What trap works best for you?
It sounds like you’ve had plenty of experience with mice. We use the old-fashioned snap traps. Randy also occasionally sets a live trap in the garage as we have shrews, too. The traps have been set now since Sunday evening and nothing, except one caught in the live trap in the garage. Bait has not been touched. So who knows?
I stepped on one Maksim caught in our living room a month ago and thought it was a cat toy till I looked closer. 😊. At least Maksim caught it!
Argh. But, yes, at least Maksim caught the mouse. Good job, kitty.
I feel this way about snakes and I have a fear of finding one in the bathroom. I refuse to use the bathroom at night without bright lights on. I wouldn’t enjoy finding mice in the house either.
Since I need to get up several times a night to use the bathroom, I’ve had this heightened awareness all week of “what if a mouse is in the bathroom.” So I totally understand. Good news: We believe we’ve caught all the mice that were hanging upstairs in the area under the eaves/closet.