Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Mouse in the House

Yesterday was a good day.  I edited one chapter despite the fact I was exhausted.  I had a great afternoon with my kids, got through enough laundry, had the kitchen mostly clean, helped kids with homework, got everyone to bed (mostly) on time - all despite the fact my husband has been out of town all week.

Late last night, I went downstairs to have a well-deserved mindless chill-out involving nachos and a saved episode of Parenthood.  And then I heard it.

There was a sound that wasn't coming from the TV.  I pressed the mute button.  I still heard it.  It seemed to be coming from the corner of the room.  I prayed it would stop.  It didn't.  I listened carefully and walked toward my husband's comfy chair (that used to be our comfy chair before we both fattened up with child number 3). 

The chair was definitely ground zero.  And the sound was a gnawing sound.  Something was there.

I had a mild freak-out where I ran out of the room, turned on all the lights, and ran upstairs to my bedroom.  I called my husband.  When I told him, he screamed, "Holy cow!" (or something more R-rated than that) and had a freak-out on the other end of the phone.  Not what I needed or wanted.

So I posted my angst on Facebook while I figured out what to do. 

I decided to:

1.  Turn on the TV with the volume on high to make the creature(s) think someone is there.

2.  Call the exterminator in the morning.

3.  Leave the downstairs lights on all night long.

4.  Wear shoes.

5.  Never again let my kids eat in the family room or bedrooms or anywhere but the kitchen table.

6.  Throw sticky traps down behind the couch and my husband's comfy chair - I have no idea why, but I had two traps that were exactly where I thought they were.

7.  Buy more sticky traps if the exterminator can't come out immediately this morning (he can't). 

8.  Get my older son to pull out the couch after school to look for evidence of whether they were inside or just in the walls.  Just in the walls...awesome.
 
9.  Shut the bedroom doors before we go to sleep, so the creature wouldn't be as likely to crawl in and join us.  My little guy fell asleep in my bed.  I protected him all night from the creature(s).  Or maybe he protected me.
 
 
This morning before I left the house with the boys, I found an opened and not-quite-empty cheesy potato chip bag on the floor of my son's bedroom.  Luckily, I was so tired, I didn't have a huge freak-out.
 
When I dropped off my littlest to preschool and we started to walk across the road toward the school, a mouse was crossing the road too.  I screamed.  And then I cried.  The teachers smiled at me and patted me on the back.  My little guy assured me it was no big deal.  He said he's worried about dinosaurs, which are way worse than mice.  Very true. 
 
I will keep telling myself that today.  It's no big deal.  It could be dinosaurs.
 

16 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Unless they are friendly. :) Poltergeists would definitely be worse. Scary clowns also worse. Ratpeople. Actually, any sort of mutant creature would be bad in any scenario...like goat spiders. :)

      Delete
  2. It would be pretty bad to have velociraptors running wild in your house, though you probably wouldn't last long enough to call an exterminator.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think we'd have to vacate for velociraptors. If anything pokes out its head, I'm taking the kids to a hotel until my husband gets home.

      Delete
  3. We have a country home so we often have mouse issues. We do have one great cat who catches them and then brings them to me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Awww, I'm sorry! Mice are the worst. We had several families of them move in to one of my houses--and the people who'd renovated before we lived there had left the kitchen cupboards open to the venting system, so I ended up with mice in my dish cupboards. I was up til 4AM one morning cleaning and blocking off cupboards. I'm full of mice horror stories, but let me just say: I survived them and got rid of them and so will you!! Hang in there!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I loved the line "It used to be our cozy chair until we both fattened up with child three!" Bahahaha! I have three kids too.

    I'm scared to death of mice. I have literally jumped up (and I am NOT the athletic type, at all) on top of our kitchen island, when I saw a mouse in my house. Funny part? My amazing cat is also scared to death and ran away from the stinking mouse! What a pair we make. LOL

    ReplyDelete
  6. A co-worker of my husband who lives in Arizona recently uncovered a nest of poisonous scorpions while doing yardwork. She was stung so many times, she needed 2 doses of anti-venom, which cost $48,000 per dose, and was out of work for 2 months.

    So yeah. Mice are gross, but not like scorpions.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I would have been having serious freak outs too!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Our internet cut out just after I posted this - I'll do my best to check in with you all tomorrow. We worked up the nerve to pull out the furniture and check behind it. Nothing in the sticky traps. And no 'evidence' of mice. My little guy's job was to search for little poop with a flashlight.

    That means they are in the walls I think. My bug guy, who we now call the Mouse Catcher, is coming in the morning.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I have no patience with rodents in the house, especially when there are kids. Having a cat saved us that problem. It's just lucky you happened to hear the noise.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Just a tip, chihuahuas are excellent mouse hunters. Who knew???

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ooh, mice are the worst. And this is the time of year they're determined to get in the house. Traps seem cruel, but it's either them or you. Be glad you discovered it when you did. Yuck. :P

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oh, poor baby! I don't mind mice. Granted, I've never had an infestation. We've had a grand total of three mice in our house--all were caught and taken to the woods and released. I have a strict policy that way (that would change if we found a whole family). I actually really love mice outside. They are so cute!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Le eeeeeeek! Hope the exterminator dude's sorted everything out for y'all!
    Mina's Resurrection Blogfest!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I feel a little more calm since we found no 'evidence' in the house, although we didn't get the teen's room cleaned up yet. We suspect if they are going to nest anywhere, it's in the piles of stinky laundry.

    Our chihuahua would have LOVED to play with a mouse or two, but we had to send her to a neighbor's house. After about two months, my two pound chihuahua had me sucking on my inhaler three times a day.

    ReplyDelete