To begin
with, we seem to have mice living in (or regularly visiting) the roof space
just over our bed. That is, we hear something that may be little scamperings,
or may be branches scratching the rooftop, or may be uncharacteristically
nocturnal birds on downhill skiing expeditions over our roof tiles, but we’ve
decided to prepare for the worst and assume it’s mice. What to do, what to do?
Obviously at
times such as these, we turn to Uncle Google. You may remember from our previous
adventures as new home owners that Piotrek is a Man with a Plan, and he got
down to stakinghis best-laid plans against the hypothetical mice right away. While I was at work
one day, he did a thorough analysis of all the various types of mousetraps and
mouse repellants currently being discussed throughout the mouse-harboring homes
of the world, and after weighing the pros and cons of each, finally settled on
a winner:
The Bucket Trap
For this
contraption, you will need a sizeable bucket (say, an empty bucket of white
primer left over from your recent painting party), a thin metal rod, an empty
beer can, and some peanut butter.
(What really
swayed the decision to select this trap was the overwhelming curiosity to see
if Polish mice like peanut butter as much as American mice purportedly do.)
Cut a hole
in the beer can at each end. Insert the metal rod. Smear the can in peanut
butter. Suspend over open bucket. (The online version had the added step of
filling the bottom of the bucket with liquid, but we didn’t actually want to drown the mice. We just wanted to trap
the mice. I suggested smearing the bottom of the bucket with peanut butter so
they’ll get stuck down there, but we decided against this due to: a) the
temptation to overeat a delicious but ultimately fattening delicacy which may
lead to health problems later in their lives and b) the possibility of the peanut
butter actually acting as a suction against the walls of the bucket, helping
them to escape, and resulting in little sticky footprints all over the
floorboards.)
The traps
that we decided against included:
The classic cheese trap: Too risky. We
are in no way willing to give up any of our cheese.
The sound deterrent: Apparently there
is some sort of noise you can play that mice hate that will scare them off. No
guarantee that we will not also hate it, especially after being forced to
listen to it all night.
The bucket-balanced-on-a-stick trap:
Piotrek was convinced these would be too difficult to set up in such a way that
the bucket wouldn’t just tumble over, mouse or no mouse. I suspect his opinion
is also tainted by the disappointment of a failed early childhood expedition,
masterminded by his older cousin, to trap Smurfs, for which one apparently uses
a very similar construction.
The cat trap: Since you’re not really
supposed to get yourself a cat while pregnant, I thought we could try dressing
Piotrek up as a cat and sending him into the crawl space to keep watch. We didn’t
even get as far as finding a costume, however, as his meow was far too unconvincing.
The bucket
trap was put to the test overnight. I heard nothing – no scamperings, no
creakings, no thuds at the bottom of the bucket and no smacking “mmmm-mmmm”s
through a sticky mask of peanut butter – so it was with great trepidation that
we opened the little door behind our bed and pulled the bucket out of the crawl
space this morning.
Now, to the
untrained eye, it was empty and untouched. But to our expert eyes, those little
straight lines traced through the peanut butter on one side of the can – yes,
those ones which look suspiciously like the little indentations of a slightly
serrated knife – say, even, a butter knife – those very lines were undoubtedly
traced by the claws of a mouse.
Only this
mouse was a rare athlete and escape artist, because he got away without a
scratch. Or the trap didn’t work. Or there was no mouse. One of the three.
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