mouse in the house

remember this game?

i do. we never had it, but i always wanted it, cause it looked so fun to get all the pieces, put them together and build this contraption. i know that the few times i did play it, we never played the actual game (i think there were rules and everything!), we just put the stuff together and tried to make the mouse trap part work. i can't remember if it ever did or not; i just remember that trapping those tiny, plastic mice relied on a lot of cheap, plastic moving parts.

i am hoping trapping a mouse in real life is easier, because i just learned that we have a real mouse (or two) in the house. i am guessing one, because the 'evidence' (aka poop) that's been left behind was pretty minimal, considering. roomie said she saw the mouse twice yesterday, both time running between the cabinets and dog food dishes. i came home and pulled all the cake baking stuff i had in the cabinets out, and found lots of little mice poops all over the cabinets and my stuff. there was a lot of sanitation going on last night, that's for sure!

having a mouse in the house feels weird, like there's an intruder. last night when i woke up in the middle of the night to let the dogs out, i swore up and down i heard the mouse eating their dog food and gnawing around the cabinets. mice really aren't scary, they are just more pesky than anything, but still. it freaks me out to know there is something living in my house that i don't (purposefully) feed and take care of.

i'm also a little embarrassed, like i live in a house of squalor. in reality, everything is pretty clean and it probably came in one night while i was letting the dogs in or out, and then found a warm little place behind the mud room cabinets to live. and the mouse hasn't been there that long, if the websites i've been reading are right, so that's a good sign.

roomie set up a barricade yesterday, to protect her from the embarrasing intruder. this barricade between the mudroom and the rest of the house is made out of board game boxes and kleenex boxes. it's a silly little line of defense really, and it's confusing the heck out of the dogs that keep having to jump over it. in my mind i can't see that it would really stop a mouse, but i think it's really the idea of it that makes us feel better. i moved the dog food onto 'our' side, squishing it into the small floor space between the kitchen and the games. it now looks like the super tiny, little mouse has a cage, made out of my mudroom. because he now has a designated place in the house, i think i want to name the mouse. i will name him timothy.

these are the traps i will set for poor timothy. i hate to snap him with the 'kill bar' traps, but i can't have him running around my house, like he owns it. and, i cannot stand the idea of letting timothy out, where he will inevitably find a she mouse and make baby mice and come back. my house, after all, is quite charming- i'm sure he doesn't want to leave!  hopefully, these 'containment traps' will be easy to use and easily catch poor little timothy. i will make sure to fill them with delicious peanut butter and dog food (his favorite) to ensure his last meal is a good one. it's the least i can do.
i feel like such a jerk.