NO LONGER HOME ALONE

Am I the only one tired of hearing about in these "unprecedented, unpredictable, un-whatever times"  that we are "alone together"?  If those companies spending a fortune on the sappy, repetitive ads would direct that money toward their employees - I wouldn't get so irked.  But that is a rant for another day.

Apparently, I am no longer sheltering on place alone.  The signs were subtle at first,  then nothing for a bit, then they were unmistakable.  Mice.

This nice little house I live in has very little kitchen cabinet space, but there is a sort of semi-finished closet off the kitchen. Previous tenants housed their dogs and pet supplies in that space. I set up shelves and organized my overflow bowls, pans, storage containers and some pantry items I couldn't fit into the kitchen.

The first alert was the tiny mouse I surprised while it was exploring the trash under the sink.  I went out and bought the standard glue traps (I know, none of this is particularly humane but those snap and squish things seem worse.) I placed two of them under the sink at the spot that looked most likely to be the point of entry.  Nothing. For weeks no sign.  Maybe the trash explorer returned to the hide out and reported it was a no go.

Then I started finding droppings in various places and the glue traps still perfectly in place.  In the closet there was a nibbled potato and I had to wash a basket of dish towels, but no other signs.  I stopped storing my occasional potato in the "pantry" and put the towels in another location.  Wiped down the shelves with Clorox, put a couple more glue traps on the shelves and started doing daily inspections.

Turns out these mice have very high end taste.  The only thing they focused on were my very expensive low carb crackers which I order by the case from San Francisco.  I tossed the first package they had ravaged and placed all the cracker type items into very heavy duty plastic bags my husband used to store yard and pool chemicals in the garage.

All seemed well. Traps clear and no new nibbles.  Or so I thought.  I went to get a package of my special crackers and I found they had chewed through the plastic and into one of my new cracker packages.  I related my battle to my sister who advised me to get electric traps that zap the mice.  She swore by the effective and more humane little killing devices.

Stay in your own damned house!

Amazon apparently didn't think them essential enough to deliver right away and I didn't want to wait 3 weeks so I left the safety of my home, went to Home Depot and paid more but had my new battle plan.  As directed, I put peanut butter in the traps even though I knew the hearts desire of the mice - so nothing happened.  I left trails of crackers up to the entry of the traps - they ate the crumbs but did not enter.  I moved them around, I cleaned out the peanut butter and put cracker crumbs inside.  No go.  I got the smart rodents.

Meantime I completely rearranged my storage and got all soft packages out of the closet pantry.  Was that a smart move?  Will they just hightail it into the kitchen cabinets now?  Is this really how I am spending my days?

Well, I don't know what changed the dynamic, but all of a sudden, 2 tiny mice on glue traps to dispose of.  Still no action in the $40.00 fancy reusable traps - but progress.  Then another on a glue trap.  Then the big time - a much larger critter entered the zap trap - I could see the tail hanging out.  I am not particularly squeamish and I will step up and deal with this myself with gloves and newspapers to remove and wrap - and try not to look at any of it.  Yuck.

Two days now and no new action.  I may be alone again.

Probably not - still alone together.