Last weekend, at about 2 a.m., I was woken up with a voice calling from the doorway, 'Oma, Oma, wake up'. It was Scott. In alarm, I jumped up, and out of bed. Not good for the heart, at my age! And I found that Scott had a mouse in our milk frothing jug, the one we use for our lattes, and wanted to know what to do with it. I could not look, and even let slip a marvellous photo opportunity. So what do you do at that time of morning, bop the poor mouse on the head, or throw it into the garden, knowing that if it survives the cats and foxes, it will find its way back into the house. Of course I instructed Scott to throw it into the garden. Just get rid of the thing!
Apparently Scott had gone into the kitchen to make a sandwich and a drink, a normal activity for an 18 year old, as we all know teenagers do not sleep at night, only in the mornings, and found a mouse running along the bench tops. Scott very bravely managed to wedge it behind the breadboard, and then scooped it into the milk jug. Very friendly and tame, he reported to me.
But now my suspicions, the discovery of 'black seeds' on top of the stove and a strange smell under the dishwasher, of the previous week, had materialised into a real mouse.
Our last experience of mice, which turned out to be a major one, occurred in 2001. It had been a cold winter, and what started off as one mouse, ended up as a huge colony (or so it seemed). We had put all our food into plastic containers, and scrubbed everything down, every day, and the mice still came, and ended up eating the labels on the plastic containers. They were obviously ravenous. In desperation Walter bought mouse traps, which he was happy to attend to, and that was fine by me. Thank goodness, I did not have to attend to such bloodthirsty activities. But the night he chose to start, was also the night when we had guests, namely Aaron, Kylie, David, Catherine and Suzanne. And all night the mousetraps pinged and snapped, as the mice were caught and zapped. And we all knew what was lying in the traps. But they worked, and the mice disappeared, via the traps, into the rubbish bin outside. And our guests survived, and lived to tell the tale of the night of the pinging mouse traps.
Now I looked up mice on the internet, which is so useful for finding out information, and filling in time, when one should be doing something that is more productive. But it appears that a mouse has a remarkable adaptability to almost any environment, and is the most successful mammalian genera living on earth today. No wonder there are so many mice around. But the part that I did not like to read, was the information, that as a mouse is a rodent, it spreads disease via droppings and parasites. I prefer to live in ignorance. Thank goodness I scrubbed the benches and bread board, and put the jug in the dishwasher, the morning after Scott caught the mouse.
So what to do! Well we can not use the humane mouse traps that Catherine very kindly sent to us after our 2001 fiasco. They are sitting, full of peanut butter, under the kitchen cupboards in Donna's old house. And so far, we have conveniently forgotten to buy normal mousetraps, when out shopping. Avoidance strategy.
I check the benches every morning, and especially the toaster, as I do not particularly want a toasted mouse to pop up there, but there are no sign of droppings anywhere. But I know I am deceiving myself, as either the evicted mouse will be back or there will be others. I can be sure of that.
So next week, we will definitely take action and buy some mouse traps. Or encourage Scott to make more sandwiches and drinks late at night, so he can catch them and put them in the garden.
I do love the scientific name - mus musculus. A good one for a speech rhyme. Perhaps Walter could write a 'mus musculus' rhyme as he waits for the mouse traps to ping. Keep his mind off the pinging mousetraps!
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