Yesterday I was tired of mouse.
In the morning the good news was that I found my granddaughters's lost toy cat wedged between the wall and the iron bedstead where she had wanted to share with gran'maman on the last two nights of her stay. How sweet!!! We did 'top and tail' like I used to do with my sister when we stayed at my nanny's house when I was little! She liked to have her feet stroked!
Now, I need a real cat.
A few days ago as I sat in the kitchen I saw the "sweet little mouse" (give me a sugar mouse) run across the courtyard into the grand salon. Whoosh, it was in! I managed to shoo it out immediately...but creatures of habit it ventured in again, when it would not oblige to be caught or go out of the door. It then played hide and seek with me as it ran around the grand salon! I thought I'd blockaded it into that room by closing all the doors, when a few days later I saw it scamper across my kitchen floor one metre away from me, as I sat, quiet as a mouse, looking at the internet! I was convinced it was the same one! This morning I heard a new noise in my kitchen as i silently sat. I tracked it down to a kind of nibbling by the side of the fridge. As I stood there listening, my foot involuntarily kicked the side of the cabinets, after the noise had stopped. Later, being concerned and feeling silly because I should have taken action a few days ago, even though I thought that this room, a laundry-cum-larder had absolutely no holes at ground level or indeed anywhere. Nevertheless I started to investigate. I opened the buanderie door and there were the nibblings ... it had eaten the plastic sheeting below the kitchen floor tiles. A small finger sized hole was there, so I mixed up some cement and scraped it into the hole. This part of the wall was revealed when we had to remove the wooden panels from the disgustingly, awful room to make it serviceable. There is a step down from the kitchen to the laundry/larder. Although my friend had roughly and temporarily sealed this skirting board type area it had never been completely finished on account of the door butting up to it AND because I was waiting to see what improvements I would make to the kitchen floor. If you have ever renovated then out of view is out of mind!!!!
After two hours I am tired of mouse! VERY tired because one thing leads to another.
The mouse has travelled through the tunnel of a grey plastic pipe carrying the copper water pipe to the washing machine and boier, where, on the other side of the wall, which is about 60cm thick, it has nibbled at the plaster and/or polystyrene in the wall to make an entry into the larder! It is a tiny finger sized hole in the corner of the room behind the copper pipes. So, I have stuffed the hole with aluminium foil, as the hole is awkwardly positioned and why it has no plaster in it! Mice evidently don't like aluminium! On the kitchen side I stuffed the grey plastic pipe with more aluminium foil.
Not only that, I removed the base boards of the hideous kitchen units, vacuumed and mopped whatever rubble, spider webs and grunge has been under there since before I moved in. I checked that there was no food there! The plastic legs look better and more IKEA style (haha) and now little mouse can't run back in for safety... 'cos that's where I saw he went!!!
Then I checked my flour. Fortunately, it is untouched, BUT the little *&$$%* has nibbled my pat biscuits!!!
That's it .... open warfare prevails
The mouse trap is set! No more Mrs Nice Lady with only the humane rescue trap I bought this morning to capture it and set it free 10 miles away. Oh no! Now it's the French guillotine and French mouse bait! I realise mice are classed as vermin, carrying disease. Normally, I have rescued many a shrew or mouse in my hands from the claws of Big Feet and Little Feet, queens in the feline world! It is kind to rescue a living creature, but now I'm aware that it/he/her could be anywhere along the polystyrene backed plasterboard forming my interior walls, chewing away.....I hope it gets constipation and starves to death!!!!!!!
About 19h 30 / 20h I watched Houdini mouse go in and out of the humane mouse trap collecting peanuts in butter and a piece of ham. I hope it chokes! And still I think it's cute!
The following day becomes Warfare day!
1. I emptied drawers and washed the cutlery that was in one drawer as mouse has been eating the plastic straws!
2. I put mouse bait on pieces of aluminium foil in the kitchen, laundry
room, grand salon and courtyard as I am not sure if I have
one or many! 1. I emptied drawers and washed the cutlery that was in one drawer as mouse has been eating the plastic straws!
3. Plus there is an inhumane wooden Lucifer mouse trap set with a piece of cheese!
As I edit this posting, it, that is, THE MOUSE, has stolen the cheese from the trap despite the fact that it was LOADED.
AND SO....
4. I have removed the trap from the floor and left the poison bait, which it has been nibbling as scattered seeds have been disturbed from the aluminium tray.
Whilst on the telephone, I heard tinkerings in the bedroom wall so after the call, I took off one sandal, used the upper surface, (last time I used the sole creating dusty foot prints over the paintwork), and thwacked the wall, so much so that plaster has fallen off the wall. Whatever was there is eating or moving the polystyrene backed plasterboard. My advice would be not to use that!!!!! but it was here when I bought the house and the stone walls were drylined in 1985.
If it is a foine they do not like noise so it had better scamper elsewhere before it hibernates.
I heard it last Autumn and in the Spring!
If it is a mouse it had better scoot quickly to the mouse bait or traps.
MICE DEBATE: Is it better to kill, rescue or transport a mouse to another habitat?
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete