1 Day 1 World Project 4:00 am – 5:00 am – A.K.A. Middle of the Night Mayhem

Well I really wasn’t planning on posting for the 4:00 am to 5:00 am time slot, but life has a funny way of making things happen.

We had just finished two solid days of stripping the main floor of our home apart after the discovery of a mouse. Yes I know it was a mouse because a few nights ago it decided to jump out at me in the bathroom in the middle of the night….. I hate it when that happens. We have never before had mice in this house, we’ve had them in our garage (and squirrels too!), but never in the house. For the last few weeks I kept telling my husband that “I heard something.” and he would just say it was one of the kids moving in their sleep. Well is wasn’t…….so WASN’T.

We went away for about 10 days and in that time frame the mice had a party. The  hip mouse party hangouts appeared to be our kid’s rooms plus under one couch. For ages I have been telling the kids “Don’t eat all over the house, don’t leave food lying around, we are going to have mice and bugs!” Well, Mom was right. The mice came and conquered. In the one bedroom it really wasn’t the kid’s fault, the mice found a juggling ball that was filled with some sort of grain and had a nibble fest all under the beds. Under the couch WAS the kid’s fault; let’s just say they don’t try to be tidy eaters so there were crumbs galore. However the room our oldest sons share must have been “Mouse Heaven”. Clearly they weren’t following the rule of “Don’t eat in your room.”. Upon discovery of the mouse activity I started to strip the room down completely. Among the various wrappers and food bits I found not one, but TWO types of cheese. Yes indeed, our invading mice had a choice of CHEDDAR and EDAM. Thanks boys!

After two solid days of taking our house apart, cleaning it and putting it back together and not hearing any mice I thought maybe the little critters had vacated the place. Well that was until just before bed last night when I went to close the cupboard and heard a “ting”. Just “ting”. Now I was going to let it go but my husband wasn’t convinced it was “nothing”. He decided to take a look. I knew it wasn’t going to go well when he suggested I go into the family room and close the door while he “took a look”. So time passes, I hear noises, then I hear my husband waking up our eldest (in the middle of the night) to “help”. At this point I know it can’t be good as I have been kept out of the loop. There are definitely mice involved, I keep the door of the room shut (and put pillows across the gap at the bottom of the door!).

Now the next part of the story is a bit second hand. My husband had a “PLAN”. (I must interrupt the story to say my husband gets QUITE obsessive with critter invasions!) Evidently my husband and son were sitting silently, waiting to hear the mouse. My husband had given my son a huge towel. My husband was going to rustle out the mouse and when the mouse ran our son was to throw the towel on the mouse fast. I also know at one point my husband said to our son “are you ready because the mice move fast?” followed by our son saying “I WAS BORN READY!” (LOL!)

I know at some point WATER was involved….no idea how or why….sometimes it is just best not to know all the details. Eventually I decided to check out what was happening as it was nearing 4:00 am. This is what I found……………

…….contents of the cupboard scattered everywhere. Granted the saw and two hammers being present looked a bit dodgy…..as I said sometimes it is better not to ask.

Evidently the cupboard had been completely cleared out in the hope to find the two mice that had been peering out from under the fridge. This helped to explain coming across this….

Evidently the rest the mice had chewed through, including a huge bag of Dorito’s. At this point we were able to at least name one of the mice, we’ll call him “Max”, after our Dorito eating son (who was also directly responsible for the cheddar an edam that fed the mice so well!). This was NOT good. I asked “where are the mice?”. They didn’t know ( I guess the magic towel didn’t work!). I said “Did you check the littles room?”, which was the room right next to the cupboard. So our son, well past 4:00 am , went to investigate.

No mice were found but he did turn up a flourescent blue octopus. That has to count for something….right?!

By now the house is AGAIN being torn apart. Not good. It is time to get serious and go for the traps. First my husband, having grown up in a vegetarian household, went for the humane live traps.

This was “okay”, but as the mayhem that the mice were causing became clearer and clearer to him it was obvious that he was going to have to use the old-school mousetrap.

It was now 5:00 am and my husband was setting live traps and snap traps all over the place. He had gone to Canadian Tire earlier in the day and bought an arsenal of mousetraps, and for good measure a squirrel trap ( and he thought about the raccoon trap too but resisted – another story!) My dad also popped by with more mouse traps as you can never have too many!

At this point I had seen enough. Traps being set. Traps going off unexpectedly. Combinations of cheese (both cheddar and slices) and peanut butter. I decided it was time to go to bed.

I turn on the humidifier, so that I can’t hear the mice scampering around. Then I stack my boots upside down.

Two years ago at the cabin mice decided to make the most beautiful nest in a furry pair of slippers I had. I decided the mice WEREN’T getting my boots.

Then I went to sleep (knowing there would be a huge mess to sort out the next day!).

 

Thanks to Northwest frame of Mind for hosting the 1 Day 1 World Project. You can click HERE to read her entry.