Ok, so where did I leave off? Yes, D had caught a mouse but there was suspicion that another mouse existed. Well, that was confirmed. D reset the trap and another mouse was caught. Yet, the peanut butter was again suspiciously missing. So D reset the trap and added a second trap to rid ourselves of the possible mouse sanctuary in our attic.
Snuggled comfortably in my bed, dreaming of things other than mice, I am bolted awake at 2:45 am but not exactly sure by what. It was a loud noise, for sure (although seeing as how D was undisturbed in his slumber, he’ll argue it wasn’t that loud). The noise is followed by softer noises, but not the traditional scratching of a mouse. Of course, persistent noise in the middle of the night causes my mind to immediately race to an intruder. I came this close to waking up D, and then thought, “Wait, this sounds mildly familiar.” The humidifier then cycled off, so I got a better idea of the noise. Oh how familiar it was!
Remember when I said a few years ago our mouse trap was “inefficient”? Yeah, turns out the new ones are inefficient, too. Again, struggling on the access board to the attic, was a mouse that got himself caught, but not “finished.” So I lay in bed in the dark, trying to ignore the sounds of my struggling mouse-intruder, hoping to be rescued by peaceful slumber.
And then I had to pee.
D & I have a strange layout to our bedroom that has two doors leading to the hallway. They are side by side, but not connecting. We believe the original layout of the house was two separate rooms, and at some point, someone took down a wall, but left the two doors. We rarely use the one closer to the closet (I’ve got shoes and clothes hanging on the back of it), but at this time, having it seemed like such a good idea. Because the door we typically use leads out to the hallway directly under the attic access point.
But using the other door would be too easy. Why have a simple solution to avoid walking directly underneath vampire-mouse? I couldn’t use the other door because D had the ladder resting against it in the hallway (that would have been one way to wake D up—“sorry I dropped the 6 foot aluminum ladder on the bedroom floor at 3 in the morning, baby!”). So I had a decision to make. Use the regular door and get close to the sounds of the undead or hold it and hope to fall asleep anyway. (And if you know me, you know that the second option is just preposterous.)
So after about 20 minutes, I summoned the courage to go to the bathroom (wow that looks as ridiculous typed out as it sounded in my head). I ran to the door, opened it, and hurriedly made it to the bathroom without hearing too much movement. Unfortunately, I was not so lucky upon my return (I think he knew someone was nearby and was pleading for help). I tried desperately to ignore it, ran back into bed, and eventually fell asleep.
Three hours later, my alarm clock goes off and I have vague recollections of the events of the wee hours that morning, although I do think to myself, “I’d better tell D to take care of that later today.” As I walk out the bedroom door to the bathroom, I am surprised to hear slight movement above my head.
I kid you not, in 3 hours this mouse would not give it up.
At this point, I’m so over Terminator-mouse, that I’m not even fazed by it. I continue to get dressed and ready to leave. I wake up D to drive me to the train station, fill him in on his duty for the day, and let him know that we have a special breed of indestructible mice living in the sanctuary.
Later D tells me that he did check out the situation (approximately 4 hours from impact). Both traps had gone off, but only one was “full.” And all the peanut butter was gone. We’re hoping that the caught mouse had tried to eat the bait off the other trap and set it off, but we’re not sure.
And if you think this story is over, it’s not. However, the next part is a little gross, so I won’t be offended if you stop here.
Apparently when D checked the trap, the mouse was still, we’ll say struggling. D knew he had a task to handle, so he did what any good man would do. He thought about his petite, peppy and brilliant friend who for several years held a job in a lab that required her to kill mice on a regular basis. And he recalled the method she’d shared with us. Below is the email exchange they shared on the subject.
Dear K,
I’m so lucky to know someone that does such strange work as killing mice/rats. I’ve had a couple of the pesky critters roaming my attic. I successfully taken out 2 of them. They all went quietly. Recently I caught a 3rd. It did not go quietly. After finding it attached to the trap I devised two options. 1. The soon to be patented K Neck Snap technique (with pencil) and as a backup 2. The guillotine method with a hatchet. I’m very thankful that after my second attempt with the K Neck Snap technique. Option number 2 was not necessary. I really didn’t want to clean my hatchet.
Thank you for your wisdom,
D
Her response:
Haha, I'm glad I could help. Good job! Be careful with the pencils though- they can break... pens are much more reliable. My current lab doesn't allow us to do cervical dislocations down here, so it's been awhile since I've used that technique myself. We need to gas mice and then cut open their chest cavity. It takes like 5 minutes to kill a mouse now. Lame!
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