It wasn’t an easy decision for me. \u00a0Everything 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. \u00a0But this time we had tried every means we knew to block stop or barricade and we failed to pied piper the pests away. \u00a0The 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.<\/p>\n
SNAP!<\/p>\n
We caught a roof rat straight away. \u00a0And 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. \u00a0We 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. \u00a0Nonetheless 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.<\/p>\n
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. \u00a0She couldn’t be more than a couple days old, her eyes barely open her little legs not quite sure how to scamper away. \u00a0I dropped my shawl at the sight of her, and she ran quickly to bury herself in the cozy cloth. \u00a0(Make note, buy new shawl.) \u00a0The redneck and I talked about what to do with the baby mouse. \u00a0We knew it was a wild creature and keeping it wasn’t an option. \u00a0Do we kill it? \u00a0After all we had already committed to extermination as an option. \u00a0As the tiny pocket mouse snuggled into my shawl on the ground, we noticed that the catch and release trap had also been sprung. \u00a0Since we had put out snap traps the night before, we were surprised that the live trap was the one that caught something. \u00a0It caught the mother mouse. \u00a0And beside her was another very weary baby mouse, just outside the cage. \u00a0Well now we had three vagabonds to contemplate their fate.<\/p>\n
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. \u00a0There are rules were you \u00a0can release a trapped animal … and its usually pretty darn close to where you caught it. \u00a0So we decided to go to the front yard and release the mischief of mice. \u00a0I’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. \u00a0But 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. \u00a0But at least two of the three little ones ended their journey on the path of the feather.<\/p>\n
I’d also like to say that the rat race was over. \u00a0But the theme music from JAWS had one more surprise crescendo before the final scene. \u00a0 The redneck and I detailed the inside of Dan’s car with our home made theives oil<\/a>\u00a0 and shop vac. \u00a0And to celebrate we would take a short drive around the block. \u00a0My 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!” \u00a0she said. \u00a0And NOW the music was blaring<\/a>\u00a0and you could see the shark fin break the water.<\/p>\n
![\"car](\"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/wp-content\/uploads\/car-mice-137x300.jpg\")
<\/a>We 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. \u00a0And yes, another five baby mice who were still waiting for their mamma to come home. \u00a0We scooped up all of the offspring and hopefully gave them a better head start than the last release. \u00a0And we once again went back to tackle the disinfecting now that we were confident<\/i> that Elvis had left the building.<\/p>\n