Of Mice and Men



We joke about living in a petting zoo because the critters outnumber the inmates in our primate habitat …. even when we don’t count the koi in the pond at the side of the house.  And its true, I do have a soft spot for the small world around me, be it beast, bird or brute.  But admittedly I don’t put out the red carpet when it comes down to the safety of my pets or property.  So while we readily take a cup and paper to the crickets or harmless spiders and help them relocate to the patio or front yard.  I will stop a black widow dead in its tracks if it finds its way into my home.

I’ve used catch and release traps for more than a decade for the odd kangaroo rat or pocket mouse.  And indeed, when we first saw that a varmint had broken into my son’s Outlander we tried coaxing the wild thing out with peppermint and a strategically placed live trap.  We actually spent weeks trying to figure out if Ben was still in residence.  But every once in a while we’d see more tell-tail signs that we were losing the battle and in the process we were losing our auto investment.  Reluctantly we decided to buy some lethal snap traps.

It wasn’t an easy decision for me.  Everything wants to live, and when I can persuade an uninvited guest to leave on its own accord, I much prefer to give it that option.  But this time we had tried every means we knew to block stop or barricade and we failed to pied piper the pests away.  The last three days felt like I was in the movie JAWS … I could hear the theme music in my head as the snap trap in the gutter directly above my outside window sat and waited to catch the culprit.

SNAP!

We caught a roof rat straight away.  And just like in the movie it was a big rat but it wasn’t THE great white shark that was eating all of the tourists .. or Mitsubishi.  We actually caught a couple of rats in short order and were becoming confident that THOSE were the ones that had taken up residence in my son’s car.  Nonetheless we put a few snap traps INSIDE and under his car so that we could be certain we found all of the rodents before we began the big cleanup and interior detail work that was needed.

Then this morning .. quite unexpectedly we opened the garage door and were startled to see a tiny tiny baby mouse sitting bewildered on the ground.  She couldn’t be more than a couple days old, her eyes barely open her little legs not quite sure how to scamper away.  I dropped my shawl at the sight of her, and she ran quickly to bury herself in the cozy cloth.  (Make note, buy new shawl.)  The redneck and I talked about what to do with the baby mouse.  We knew it was a wild creature and keeping it wasn’t an option.  Do we kill it?  After all we had already committed to extermination as an option.  As the tiny pocket mouse snuggled into my shawl on the ground, we noticed that the catch and release trap had also been sprung.  Since we had put out snap traps the night before, we were surprised that the live trap was the one that caught something.  It caught the mother mouse.  And beside her was another very weary baby mouse, just outside the cage.  Well now we had three vagabonds to contemplate their fate.

We decided that since the mother was caught in the live trap, that it would only be fair to allow her the intended release we initially approached the problem.  There are rules were you  can release a trapped animal … and its usually pretty darn close to where you caught it.  So we decided to go to the front yard and release the mischief of mice.  I’d like to say that the mother mouse cuddled up her two foundlings and scampered to safety under a bush or up the palm tree.  But nature’s plan doesn’t always line up with the way I imagined Life to unfold and I can’t imagine how those two black crows knew I was ringing the dinner bell.  But at least two of the three little ones ended their journey on the path of the feather.

I’d also like to say that the rat race was over.  But the theme music from JAWS had one more surprise crescendo before the final scene.   The redneck and I detailed the inside of Dan’s car with our home made theives oil  and shop vac.  And to celebrate we would take a short drive around the block.  My daughter and I were in the back seat, we didn’t go more than a block away when she turned to me with wide eyes and moved forward on her seat quickly … “I felt something!”  she said.  And NOW the music was blaring and you could see the shark fin break the water.

car miceWe turned right around and went back to the garage, quickly googled how to remove the back seat and what we found was an entire habitrail of mouse habitat that had been excavated under the back seat.  And yes, another five baby mice who were still waiting for their mamma to come home.  We scooped up all of the offspring and hopefully gave them a better head start than the last release.  And we once again went back to tackle the disinfecting now that we were confident that Elvis had left the building.

The redneck was certainly my Sheriff Brody waging a long fight to keep us all safe.  He jury rigged the shop vac to reach in small places inside the car frame and made a clean sweep of the whole ordeal.  And we know it won’t be the last time we are at odds with nature at our front (or garage) door.  But for now, all is quiet on the western front and our koi are the only fins making an appearance in our feature presentation.

Leave a Reply