Tonight about 9 o'clock, I hadn't eaten dinner yet so I go upstairs from my bedroom where I'd been watching TV and there it was -- something in the glue trap. Remember I had thrown away the one trap which I felt had dried and really wasn't glue-y enough, put out a new one which was super sticky.
On Saturday night I was in the kitchen and heard rustle, rustle in the garbage bin which I tried to deny and then could no longer deny and I was frantically looking for something to drop in the garbage pin, instantly grab the plastic liner bag, thus trapping the mouse. In those few seconds of scanning my kitchen (looking for an anvil??) the mouse was too fast for me and jumped out of the trash and scurried away.
This is war.
I changed my tactic and put the trap in a different place. Nothing this morning, but tonight, when I went upstairs, in one second I take in the sight that there was "something" in the trap. I go into my little room where I had a big pack of paper towels and take a new roll. My plan was to bunch up the paper towels, drop it on the glue trap and then sweep it up. I was just shakjing and nervous and clammy. That's how much I hate those little effers.
When I take in my second look to aim for the paper towels, I note that there are two mice in the trap, one dead, one still alive.
eeeeeeeeeeeek
eeeeeeeeeeeek
eeeeeeeeeeeek
I can pick up the trap when the mouse is dead (and have) but not when it's alive, even though I know it is stuck. I couldn't find the super's phone number -- my plan was to call the super and ask him to come over to dispose of it. Alternate Plan B was to leave it and hope that it died overnight. I remembered I had the super's number on my cellphone, but for some reason, everytime I tried the number, I'd get a CALL FAILED notice. I didn't want to use the phone in the kitchen because I'd have to walk past the trap.
So I decide to go out to the mailboxes and get the super's phone number which is hanging there since I wasn't 100% sure which number it was on my cellphone. While out there, my neighbor who lives in the other apartment on my floor is returning and I opened the door for her, she greets me and I say, "Are you afraid of mice?" She looked a little startled but said not really and I told her my problem.
She non-chalantly said Oh, she'd go pick it up for me, opens her apartment door and I'm standing outside trying to convince her that no, really, she doesn't have to do this and she insisted it was really no problem for her. She gets a broom and dust pan and a bag and off she goes. I had left my front door open and told her I'd stay there. She said just tell me where it is. I did. She got it as I'm standing there 50 feet away near tears. When she comes out, I kept saying thank you and said I'd hug her but I don't want to get that close to her (since she was holding the bag), but I did kiss her on her cheek.
She took it out to the garbage and I was so terribly grateful to her. I think tomorrow I'll handwrite a thank you note and put it under her door. It was nothing to her and she said, "Just knock on my door if you need me." Oh my God, I am so grateful. I [HEART] my neighbor!
6 comments:
I feel so bad for you.
I remember my mouse story many years ago. I was cooking in the kitchen and I saw something by my heating unit. When I got closer, I saw a baby mouse. I screamed and ran out into the hall. Of course there was no one there so I opened my door and called downstairs on the intercom. My porter came up and got it. He said there were no more....bulls--t! I opened the door and of course there was another one. I stayed in the hallway for a few hours until my neighber came home and declared that I had mice. We went out to Arriba and I had 5 margaritas and told everyone in the restaurant that I had mice and could not go home. I forgot to mention that when I screamed upon seeing the mouse, my 2 cats...Piper and Kiki ran under the dining table and stayed there for 2 days. I would not sleep in the apt. that night and the next day I had to go there to get ready for work. I sat in the kitchen on a high stool and sure enough the mother mouse ran by. My super went in after I left for work and went over the whole apt. He said that there was a hole in the heating unit and he filled it. Fortunately for me, I never had another one.
Somewhere in your apt. is a hole that needs to be filled in. You really need someone to go over your upstairs with a fine tooth comb. I am sorry to tell you again as you must be tired of hearing this. At least you have a good neighbor who is really great!
Good luck, Stephanie
It must be critter season, they are coming inside to hole up for the winter. I am now waging war against squirrels - evidence that they are in BOTH the basement AND attic crawlspace ... I hate that scamper scamper scamper sound across the ceiling. The electronic pest-repeller noise-making device worked for a few years but apparently no longer -- perhaps after a few generations it has bred a few deaf squirrels?
Well, Mary can weigh in with her box elder bug story so we're all being inundated.
Barbara - so sorry the radio thing isn't working any more as I envied you for the simplicity of it.
I have only seen one mouse in my house in 19 years. I have, as Pat says, had periodic infestations of box elder bugs. They don't eat your food, carry disease, live in your house and procreate, eat wood or clothes, or any other destructive behavior, but they SWARM. I had hundreds of them on my upstairs window and hundreds more on the side of the house. The exterminator came and got them today. As a result, when poor Emily, the young woman who has been staying with me, opened the back door, she was showered with dead bugs. Yuck. She said it would have been funny if she had a video of herself screaming like a girl, but it probably wouldn't have made me laugh...
When Mary called me that night, she was screaming and half-crying and I thought someone had died or there was an axe murderer chasing her or something, but Milo had a mouse and he was playing with it and the mouse would faint or play dead and when Mary would get close to the mouse to sweep it up, it would come back to life and I told her to call Fran. Now I've forgotten how Mary got rid of it, but she somehow got the mouse (dead I think) into a big shopping bag and out the door.
I hate to say this girlfriends, but I have to admit that I laughed as I read these posts... Not so much because I thought what happened was funny... But your story telling of it. My mouse story... There was a mouse in a vase on the bedside table.. I was sure of it... Kept hearing it in the night. Made my significant other at the time set a trap.... Middle of the night .. SNAP!!! Trap falls on the floor.. Flopping around!!! I screamed!! That night... It was good to have the significant other... But it wasn't worth it. Now I just hope I don't get any more mice!!!
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