When we got home from house-hunting on Saturday afternoon, Jules said 'Ooh!' as he came in the front door. He'd just seen a mouse run down our stairs and into the cupboard under the stairs where the vacuum cleaner lives.
So that would explain that funny smell we hadn't been able to identify, but that seems like it's coming from under the floorboards in the living room and the spare bedroom.
Later, when we went looking in that cupboard for the screwdrivers to put the crib together with, the mouse ran out and into the kitchen and disappeared through a hole in the corner of the joinery between the oven and the sink. We haven't seen it since.
On Sunday I bought two traditional mouse traps and Jules baited them with peanut butter and we tried hard to put them somewhere where we wouldn't stand on them in the night. One is in the kitchen under the vegetable basket drawer thing and the other is behind the door in the spare bedroom.
My other choice was to go for a glue trap, which traps the mouse's paws in glue and then you have to 'dispatch the mouse humanely' yourself. How mean is that - leaving the mouse stuck in glue for hours awaiting its own demise? Or I could have had straightforward poison but then what happens if the mouse dies under the floorboards? Very smelly...
Anyway our mouse is too smart for us as both traps were untouched this morning. It is obviously too well-fed (it's quite a large mouse) and the peanut butter is not tempting enough.
Maybe the problem is that there are enough biscuit crumbs etc on the floor already to keep it going for some time. Note to self: sweep kitchen floor.
Ah well, I've always wanted a pet and this one is no different to my cat Fleur - she used to run away when I tried to get to know her better too. Like I said, this mouse is one smart cookie.
4 comments:
But that mystery smell didn't seem like a mousy kind of smell nor morbid mousy smell...? How is Herman shaping up these days...
Herman (the monstera plant) has had a reprieve, after being left out on the roof terrace for several days. We thought he was the cause of the bad smell, but we were wrong. So he's had all his leaves cut off (they went black with the cold) and we're hoping he'll pull through. He did last time we put him outside for a week!
I think that your problem is that you are using traditional mouse traps to capture a modern mouse!
I just realised that your mouse... being a very modern mouse, is probably addicted to sugar. Just like some little girls I know who much prefer Nutella to peanut butter, I bet you mouse will have the same tastes!
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