Mouse chronicles

Mouse sighting begins:
A streak darts across the kitchen floor that I catch out of the corner of my eye. I am having a bad day but this makes me wonder... what am I bitching about? I have a home so nice that even the mice want in!

Four days later:
I know they are potentially cute with their furry little bodies, round ears and sniffing noses. But when I see one of them streaking across my kitchen floor at 2 am, when I discover a new hole chewed in my kitchen wall, when I see more tiny flecks of their dung (one my stove top no less!), I get mad! I have no intention of sharing my space with tiny little mammals. Or any of those roaches, for that matter.

I clean the kitchen, again. I vacuum up turds, again. I put out more poison and stuff the newly discovered holes with steel wool. darn mice!

The next day:
I wake up in the middle of the night. I'm forced, once again, out of a dream. Then I see the dark blob in the middle of the floor in the half light. I dont' remember dropping anything in that spot. In the morning I see it is indeed the little grey mouse, dead. It seems to have been halted in a march directly toward my bed by the grim reaper. Perhaps this lone rodent was trying to show me the death I was inflicting on its colony with my little poisonous treats.

You're not so cute with your legs in the air and your eyes absent of life like two black marbles. I'm so angry with you mice. I'm angry at finding your dung on my floors, in my closets, on my stove, on my countertops. There's not a lick of food sitting out to be had in my apartment. There are no piles of dirty dishes or garbage. What are you doing here?

Maybe they see me as a big germy pest? Well, I'm the one paying to live here and subsidizing your warm winter scamperings. So it's time to move out, mousie. Out or up.

The next day:
The mice still win battles; leaving droppings on my stove and in my shoes. But I took photos of their little set up today to send it to the land lord. I'm amazed at how much evidence of them I see about. I'm amazed at how brazen they are. 10 minutes after I turn off the light at night I hear them coming out. I hear the noise of the bricks of mouse poison being pushed across the floor by their gnawing. When are they going to die, already?

The next day:
Dear Mr. landlord
I spoke to you a couple of weeks ago regarding a problem I was having with mice in my apartment. I had noticed their droppings behind my refrigerator and you gave me the phone number of an exterminator. I have phoned this exterminator a few times and they have yet to return any of my calls.

In the mean time the mice activity increased. Every day I clean up more droppings. I have found droppings on my stove top, by my kitchen sink, in my clothes closet, even in my shoes. I don’t understand why they are coming into my apartment as I do not keep food outside of my refrigerator unless it’s in a can, a jar, or it’s an onion. I do not leave the sink filled with dirty dishes. I stuffed any opening which looked like a mouse hole with steel wool, but still they came in.

Finally, I went out and bought a box of mouse poison and placed portions around the flat. Because of this I noticed that the greatest area of activity is by my back (kitchen) door. The gap at the bottom of my back door is big enough for a mouse to fit through and right outside that back door is my neighbor’s trash. When I stepped out to see if there was evidence of mouse activity by the trash, I noticed quite a few pigeon droppings. There is, in fact, a pigeon nest with two little eggs in it right on a bend in the stairs which heads up to the third floor. I found another nest at the bottom of the stairs, in the basement.

Today I went out and bought more mouse poison and more steel wool. I have stuffed the steel wool into every crevice that I could fit a finger into around the entire apartment. I know that this is only a temporary solution and that an exterminator should be sought before the rodents simply chew different holes. Should I seek out a different exterminator?

Please let me know what you would like me to do.

Mouse home, day 9:
Heading out for work, I shove the brass key in the lock, knowing that there is no safety in my home, now. In less than five minutes a party will start in my closet and kitchen. A mouse party.

I don't like the sense of some little creatures that I can't control running around in my home while I'm not there. It bothers me that the space I pay rent on is invaded by these rodents, unwelcomed. I turned off the lights last night before bed and within five minutes I could hear them. They squeeked in loud protest that all entry points had been blocked by steel wool. The mouse in my closet was more successful. It seems to have a point of entry that has eluded my examination thus far.

But it's increasingly getting me thinking about the mouse as an icon in our culture. The mouse is always the hero in the cartoon, defeating the silly and hyper aggressive cat. But I also got thinking about the "MAUS" books by Art Spiegelmann in which the Jews are depicted as mice and pursued by the germans, who are cats. Spiegelmann is associating the Jewish people with something that is considered a pest. These mice come in and go where I dont' want them. They could be spreading germs all over my home with their filthy feet and dung. They eat things I don't want them getting into. They must be blocked, limited in access and, well, poisoned.

Is it possible that I'm that wrong about the mice or that our human thinking can be that flawed in its attitudes toward whatever we see as "not like me". Is it possible that the mice I hate are not doing anything wrong at all? They are doing what I do, only on a different scale and in a place I don't wish for them to be doing it. Maybe there is something bigger than me which wishes I would stop my scurrying and feeding and just die? I don't like that thought at all.

So I have a new plan: deter. I will get rid of all poison food in my kitchen. I will stuff in more steel wool, spray, and just hope they'll forget about the tasty toxic morsels that my kitchen once provided.

Day 10:
I had a mouse free night. I've noticed that they are quieter when it rains. Perhaps they have left my domicile alone in frustration over all of the plugged entry points? Perhaps the poison has finally done its work and they're all dead somewhere inside the walls? Many of them certainly should be dead by now, considering how much poison they've chewed up. The last time it rained I woke up to find a 3.5" mouse dead on the floor.

Just the same, I'll leave my fancy, new, no-touch snap traps out to catch any new adventurers. I'll continue to scout for droppings. I've realized my eye catches and gut panics on any tiny black fleck I see. A poppy seed bagel could probably give me a nervous breakdown. It panicked me to see those droppings around the room. I instantly visualized the tiny grey monsters scurrying uninvited through my closets, in my shoes, along the walls.

Today, while I felt relief at the absence of mouse signs, I left the radio on. Perhaps the sound of human voices will help drive them away. Either that or I will come home to find them all deep in slumber in the living room while the radio plays NPR.


Day 14:
After so many mouse free days, I found one tonight, dead. My biggest puzzler was, how in hell did that thing get IN here to die in the first place? I have blocked just about every possible orifice in the place with steel wool, but there it was. It's little feet were paused as if it just keeled over mid-step. At one moment it was choosing to run toward the bathroom and in the next it decided to die instead. I wonder how it happens? Do they take a while to die and crawl along in pain? Or does it hit them suddenly?

I was right that the rain was keeping them from coming out. Now that we've had a dry day they might try to emerge again. Should I leave the radio on so they hear the human voices and stay away? Should I put out more poison? How can it take so long for poison to kill something so small? I couldn't help but notice the details of its face and it's ears. This was an animal that had been conceived and grown in a species effort to propagate. They are no more pests than humans, really. We've evolved these big brains and some big problems to match. They've evolved grey coats to blend in with our shadows and big ears to hear us coming. Whenever I mention the mouse issue people tell me to get a cat. It's never so simple as cat and mouse. I, personally, would consider the proposed solution to be a problematic pest in its own right.

I pick it up by it's little tail using my hot dog tongs. Hey, when one doesn't eat hot dogs, what else ya gonna do with tongs? I plop the soiled grocery bag that has become a mouse's coffin into the garbage and look around. I spy a tiny gap under the bathroom sink which could have provided a point of entry and grab for more steel wool. Traps, exterminator, blockage, poison, do the mouse chronicles ever end?