We have lived in our house for 17 years and apart from the furry mammals that we have chosen to share their lives with us, we have never had what you might call a rodent problem.
We live backed by allotments so the opportunity is certainly there. Our neighbours constantly seem to suffer, although there are plently of cats in the area - one of our neighbours has 5!
For 16 of the 17 years we had cats too - Smudgie going to cat heaven this time last year and, while he evidenced that there were mice about, bringing little dead gifts back now and then, we had never had any in the house until last week, when I saw one.
A trip to B and Q ensued and I purchased a humane trap and 2 death traps ( poison bait). The children begged me not to use the death traps so we persevered with the humane one, really looking forward to the time we would then have to take the trapped mouse 'up to a kilometre away to release it' to ensure it wouldn't come back and hopefully all its friends and family would leave too in a grand expedition to find it.
The humane trap appeared to have a mind of its own however, and tricked us on numerous occasions into thinking we had caught the mouse. At one point the mouse had been in, eaten the bait and gone again before the trap politely shut, leaving me with Tom and Jerry images of accomplices and orphan mice etc.
So we gave up on the trap and didn't check it for a couple of days. The instructions say you are supposed to check it ever 6 hours so that the mouse, if captured does not become traumatised inside the trap.
DRUMROLL............
On Friday evening, Joe came in to the living room to announce that the mouse had been caught, the trap was sprung and it felt heavy. I was astonished as I hadn't set the trap properly at all and certainly hadn't checked it since Weds Eve when Keith and I had decided to make 'other arrangements' mwahahahaha!
I was not going for a kilometre drive or walk so suggested the kids take it to the end of the garden to let it go.
Shock horror - the humane trap had become an inhumane trap and the mouse was ever so horribly dead. Joe gave a blow by blow description and we all felt sick, Elyse was broken hearted and Thomas was delighted to have found her Achilles Heel, whispering 'Dead Mouse' at every opportunity - kids are so cruel.
1 comment:
aarrrrrgh m8, i know how ya feel!!! haha mice are funny little things, we caught another one christmas morning that by the sounds of it was double the size of our first one!
did you name it?? give it a funeral??
sarah x
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