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I was far, far too optimistic to hope I had managed to rid my abode of mice. A week after we returned from our trip, my spouse spotted yet another varmint. This time in the LIVING ROOM and the little sucker ran into the KITCHEN and went into the cupboard where my COOKING PANS are.
Of course you know, this means war.
At this point, there is no food they can get to, at all. Everything in my pantry is now in glass. All bread is in the microwave. Everything else is fridge or freezer. There is nothing here to tempt them. There never really was, given I didn't see any signs of chew marks on anything, ever. But for some reason they have moved into my townhouse. I have now heard them scratching at the walls between us and the neighbors.
And all I can really think is, now what? Seems like those sonic repellers, of which I now have six in my home, do pretty much nothing. Well, that was always a possibility.
The land lady has been notified. No response yet.
MY PANS.
Where is my kitchen stuff possibly safe? Do I have to find a way to pull everything out of the cupboards on the ground and only use the ones over the sink? That's gonna put a dent into my dish holding capacity for certain. Otherwise, I'm going to have to wash my pans all the time. And I don't even like that idea because if the mice are ... are ON MY PANS then I don't think I even want to touch them.
Trap was empty this morning.
MY PANS. Not to mention my KITCHEN and my LIVING ROOM.
Calm. Yes. Calm. We are eating out every meal today as I try to figure out how to deal with this. Just not sure. This is nuts.
Your Hostess With Neuroses
Image credit/info: Promo photo for the Movie Caddyshack. Character Carl Spackler plans his attack on the gopher that has been tearing up the golf course.
16 comments:
This is a bad time for mice as they start to move indoors seeking someplace warm. I wonder if they are coming in to your neighbors'. Maybe they aren't as proactive against vermin. Then they pass into your place to do a little exploring. Hopefully your landlord does something soon. (I can't believe the ultrasonic plug-ins didn't work. We haven't had a single mouse since we got ours, but we did put one in every room and two in the large rooms as well as two in the garage. My friend, Jules, swears by them as well.)
If it makes you feel any better, my friend, Tracy, just spent the part of the other day cowering in the bathtub with a pot and a broom after spotting a mouse in the house. Just think, at least you're not cowering in the bathtub. ; ) LOL
Hey Kat - Thanks so much for the comment. I feel a little better. Yes, I am not cowering in the bathtub. That is a compelling idea, but I am glad I am coping as well as I am :)
Maybe I don't have enough of the ultrasonic gizmos. I do have a lot of square footage to cover. Can't hurt to get a few more and see of that helps.
I think you are right about the neighbors. I know they got a dog recently, a big one, and it is possible the mice are chowing down on a large bag of dog food over there. They both work all day, so might not have noticed we have visitors. As hard as that is for me to believe. I need to write them a note. I don't usually interact with them because they are the couple that yell at each other all the time and then listen to loud, violent television.
Oh, YOUR PANS!
I feel for you.
I really really do.
Best of luck!
Yes, mice LOVE dog food. We always keep ours in plastic containers in an upper cabinet. (Mice don't seem to bother uppers quite so much.) My dog gets fed twice per day. She eats it immediately and I was the bowl. No way is my dog going to draw mice into my house. (I didn't want to say, maybe your neighbors are slobs, but I was thinking it. My brother had to move out of his first apartment because they had problems with roaches due to the neighbor. Ewwwww.....)
One of my barn cats has been making gifts out of them, though. She's dropped two dead mice and a dead mole on our porch within the last week. (Just imagine how I reacted to that!!! Trust me, my cat's idea of a gift and my idea of a gift are definitely not the same thing. )LOL
Yes, it does take a lot of the ultrasonic mouse chaser things. You are supposed to put one in each room (we centered them) and two in large rooms (we put one at each end) and they can't be blocked by furniture, draperies, etc. as it blocks the ultrasonic waves. We have at least 16 in our house which is 3300 sq.ft. including the finished basement. We also have two of the larger ones in the garage.
Yikes! Definitely keep calling the landlord and have her pay to take care of it. It will give you peace of mind to have them taken care of professionally. Good Luck!
Oh, how awful! I haven't had time to read the other posts, but have you put peanut butter in the traps? That's what my boyfriend does in his building on the farm.
Thanks for reading and for the comments!
The Girl - Have contacted landlady, and hopefully we'll have a plan soon.
Sheri - I've been using peanuts instead of peanut butter since my OCD's won't allow something 'messy.' But the peanuts seem to be working fine as bait so far.
Mice and the posibility of mice are one of my big spike issues that ocd uses to keep me in anxiety land. When we first moved into this house i was cleaning out the kitchen and found they had lots of mouse droppings in the drawers and under the sink. We haven't had mice in the house the past 3 yrs but they must have at some point and never cleaned the mess of the poison or mouse droppings. When i saw the stuff, i freaked and started throwing the drawers into garbage bags and out of the house.
Before i had this kind of ocd i had dealt with mice in our first house. We finally had the exterminators come and leave really good poison in invisible areas in the joists and in the garage. (they had come in thru the garage by eating the rubbery door edges. )
Good luck in your battle!!
Definitely keep on that landlord! She needs to help you with this nightmare. She has a legal responsibility to do so. I had a fruit rat in my apartment once. Scared the hell out of both me and my cat. Traps and poison were used. It never came back. Good luck with this!!
Oh ugh, that sounds so terrible. I think the getting-more-sound-thingies is a good idea.
Lots of non-OCD folks get really freaked out by rodents, so your reaction is very understandable. Kudos to you for staying and working on solutions! I'd probably be maxing out my credit card in a hotel. :-)
Thanks for all the encouragement! Amy - yeah, the hotel idea did occur to me. But I've been able to hold my fudge, so to speak, and remain in the house. I now have a set of pans I'm keeping clean and well off the floor. I still need to go into the main cupboard with my pots ... but I'm a a little scared. No sign of varmint for the last three days ...
Woohoo! Three days varmint free! YAY!!! Hoping it stays that way. : )
I hope the anxiety and the rodents are both dissipating! We had a mouse last winter, and although I wanted it gone, my ocd doesn't latch onto that, so I only had to deal with the ick of the rodent, not the ick of my thoughts.
Thanks for the comment, expwoman - the varmit has not been seen nor heard for days. I am hoping that the sonic devices that are all over the house are encouraging them to move to quieter pastures. I'm doing better with the anxiety, but my pan cupboard remains off limits for the moment.
Sonic devices do not repel varmints. I have seen them gather around and break dance to the sound. As for eating out, don't kid yourself. In college I had a job cleaning restaurant kitchens. They have the same varmint problems.
As I get older, I have begin to wonder just what we mean by "illness," mental or otherwise. I know of nobody who doesn't have something going on. For example, I find looking people in the eye too intimate. Not a big problem. I also have a few minor medical irregularities. The point is, anyone who has nothing wrong with them would be actually abnormal. Perfect people leading perfect lives probably don't exist. So, illness amounts to shades of grey. It's more a mater of how much darkness you can comfortably tolerate. Maybe just try to be the best 'you' possible at any given time under the circumstances. Perfection and absolutes only exist in math.
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