29 February 2008
Surprises and Horrors
I took Friday and Monday off to spend a long weekend with my mom at her vacation house. I hadn't been there in years, so my mom described all changes and ended her account with "Every time I get there, a new surprise is waiting". She was right!
When we got there, the whole floor was covered in tiny bits of rubber foam. We found out very quickly that the rubber foam used to be the innards of a pillow, obviously scattered on the floor by a mouse who had made the pillow its home. Mice in the house! An aspect neither of us was looking forward to.
Well, the friendly neighbour knew what to do and came over with a mouse trap (the kind that breaks the mouses neck when it snaps) babbling away about how many mice and rats he caught and about the bad quality of today's traps. Apparently, they fall apart after being used 5 times. He almost caught his finger in the trap as he set it up which also resulted in the trap falling apart. ;-) He managed to set the trap up eventually.
I don't really know what I was thinking, but it was quite a choc for me to come into the kitchen later that evening to find a mouse in the trap. And even worse - the poor thing wasn't even dead. Its head was caught, and it was slowly being chocked in the trap. :-( Neither my mom nor I could bear the sight. So my mom put the trap with mouse outside, and I freed the mouse. I must admit that I am quite a chicken. I have never seen a live mouse before (or a dead one for that matter). I didn't feel that it was OK to take my time to look at the poor thing, and work myself up to touching the mouse, so I freed it with help of a fork and knife (they were handy). Somehow my mom found that very funny. The mouse was able to stand up, though it didn't run away at once. It was gone when I checked later, so I am quite sure it recovered. It was a grey mouse, by the way, with a dark stripe down its back. It looked a little like a skinny hamster with a very long tail.
We didn't put the trap up again (or any others) and sealed all the cracks we could find with foam insulation. I don't really think it will keep out the mice, but maybe it will ward them off for a little while.
# posted by me @ 22:58 
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