If You Give a Mouse A House

You know we have our house on the market.

And you know that someone has been interested in it.

Well, apparently there is more interest in our house that from just that buyer. We have a mouse that has taken up residence in our home. Considering that we live very close to some woods I'm surprised that it hasn't happened before now.

It all started on Monday morning when Jeremy was heading into the kitchen. I happened to be right behind him to ask him a question when all of a sudden he jumped about a foot off the ground.

Our little visitor had run out from under the refrigerator right across his foot and into the laundry room.

Had it been me, Jeremy would have been announcing my funeral plans right now.

So Jeremy put out some of those little glue traps around the fridge and in the laundry room.

For the record, and so PETA and ASPCA don’t come chasing me down, I hate traps. I hate the thought of a mouse trap and I hate the idea of a glue trap. Both seem very painful, and either way it doesn’t fare so well for the mouse.

But having a mouse in my house doesn’t fare so well for me.

So we put the traps out and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And nothing happened.

Then late Tuesday night Jeremy and I walked by the laundry room and caught a whiff of something really bad. We both thought that our little visitor had met his demise and had died in our laundry room. So Jeremy and I proceeded to move stuff out of the way, and I laid down on my stomach with a flashlight while Jeremy tilted the washer and dryer up so I could look underneath them and see if we had found our mouse.

I learned two things from this little experience: First of all, our dog Macy sheds a lot. I could have made a fur coat out of the hair underneath the washer and dryer.

Second of all, it’s extremely hilarious to tickle the back of Jeremy’s leg when he’s on a mouse expedition.

At least it was funny to me.

Jeremy wasn’t laughing.

So after checking out underneath the washer and dryer, we came up empty handed, but we could still smell something really bad. Then my eyes glanced in the direction of a bag of Wal-Mart bags. We always collect them and take them to Jackson’s preschool. I noticed that one of the bags looked kind of yellowed, so I held it out to Jeremy and asked him to check it out.

I may or may not have asked him to sniff the bags.

And Jeremy may or may not have sniffed the bags.

Let the record show that if someone asks you to sniff something, it’s probably not a good idea to do it.

After Jeremy went running from the kitchen dry heaving, it occurred to me that it looked kinda like milk that had spilled into the bag.

We haven’t seen or heard from our mouse friend since then.

And apparently the smell of spoiled milk works better than a mouse trap any day.