SNAP. SNAP. Two mice snapped in traps. Dead. In an upstairs bedroom closet. One caught yesterday during the day, the other overnight. And then a third caught in a live trap in the garage overnight, the second mouse snared in the garage in two days.
I am assuredly relieved, but also a tad freaked out by the presence of multiple mice, especially in our house. I won’t share details, but suffice to say Randy thinks more mice may have moved in. The trap has been set for a third time in the closet.
Meanwhile in the basement, the peanut butter baited trap remains untouched. There have been no additional live mice sightings since the first mouse we spotted running into our living room and then into the kitchen before vanishing Sunday evening. How did it find its way upstairs? Don’t even answer that question.
I just want them caught. All of them. I am not a welcoming landlord. I want them out, evicted. Gone for good.
The interesting thing here is that I suggested to Randy on Sunday evening that he set a trap in the upstairs closet because we have, on occasion, caught mice in that space. He didn’t listen. Not initially. But before he left for work Tuesday morning, I asked him to please remove the trap from the kitchen. My fear was that a mouse would be caught there while he was gone. I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with a mouse, dead or alive. I am terrified of mice.
And so the waiting continues with hopes that soon, very soon, all of the mice in this house will have been eradicated. Because I am truly sick of them.
P.S. Sorry, no photos with this post. No way will I photograph a mouse, dead or alive.
Mouse art displayed in a show at the Owatonna Arts Center many years ago. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
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?
Mouse and rat killer spotted in The Watkins Museum in Winona during a visit years ago. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo)
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 
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