It was much too large to be a cockroach or any other bug for that matter. It was furry and it was fast. It was a mouse. He was picking up some crumbs under our kitchen table. I stood there frozen as he began to run towards my bare feet. Thankfully, he made a quick right turn and dove under the dishwasher. The next day, we found mouse poopies scattered about the kitchen floor. We had a mouse problem.
Ew.
At about this same time, I spotted and killed three gigantic spiders. These suckers were bigger than any spiders we had ever had in a house before. I did some research on them and found out that they are quite common out here in the Northwest. They are called, "Giant House Spiders". That is no joke. They actually have the word "GIANT" in their names.
Double Ew.
I guess we should be used to "home invasions". In our house back east we routinely had new and exciting house guests. Most of them made their presence known in the middle of the night. The critters would get up into our attic and then fall down between our bedroom wall and an unfinished stairway. Then they would spend all night squeaking and scratching because they were stuck. Alas, many came to their rodenty ends behind that wall.
We were able to save a few.
There was the mouse that we rescued by attaching a single serve cereal box to a climbing rope. We left a cheerio in the box and lowered it down to the spot he was stuck. As soon as he went in to get the cheerio, we pulled up the box. Not only did he get a rescue, he got a free meal.
Then there was the baby squirrel. That required a uber-long stick. We stuck the stick down between the wall and the staircase. Being the squirrely type, he could not resist the urge to climb. So, when he did climb his way up the stick, I grabbed him and stuck him in a tupperware container full of bird seed and ushered him outside.
There was also a bat. He had made himself nice and cozy under the air conditioner that we had in our bedroom window. Autumn came and it was time to get the unit out of the window. Huzbend, being the He-Man of the family, lifted the unit out of the window and out rolled a little brown bat. He had been partially squished by the weight of the air conditioner and the tight squeeze out the window. Since he was squished, he didn't really move around a lot. So, I had to pick him up, throw him in a ziploc and show him the door.
We had mice, we had squirrels, we had ants (carpenter AND little brown ones), we had wasps and bees and spiders. You name it. I guess the difference this time is that these mice are not just behind the walls, they are in our living space and making a damn mess of it.
A week or two ago, there was a hole in a package of bread that we had left on the counter. There was a chunk of bread missing as well. I thought that it must have ripped in the store, so I took out two peices (not the one with the hole in it) and ate a nice ham and turkey sandwich. It was later that we found a mouse poop on the counter. The damn mouse had found his way onto the counter and ate our bread. BLECK! I ate that bread, man. I ate mouse contaminated bread. We went out and bought a bread box.
Triple Ew.
The other night, after another midnight feeding, I walked into the kitchen and caught Sir Mouse red-handed standing on our kitchen counter. As soon as I turned on the light, he made a mad dash across the counter, across the sink, through the dish rack and under the counter right near the dishwasher. Bastard had climbed up the back of the dishwasher to access the counter.
The next morning after a quick inspection, I found poop near our stove burners, near our toaster oven, on the dish dryer rack, on a wooden spoon IN the dish drying rack, and one lone poop near our drying baby bottles. He had eaten through a package of hot dog rolls and ate half of one bun. Oh-HO! Bold.
I called Terminix. Believe it or not, they DO take care of mice. The guy came this past Saturday. Upon inspecting our crawl space (we don't have a basement), he told us that we do have a mouse problem BUT we also have a RAT problem. RATS. What the hell? He had found their nests and their poop down there. So, he laid down all sorts of traps and sealed up as many possible entrances that he could find. He knocked down all the spider webs outside and sprayed for them as well. BTW, do you know that they don't have termite problems out here? Mostly carpenter ants. Hmph. Interesting.
Anyways, when Mr. Terminix was done with all this, he came up to have us sign the yearly contract and pay him our lives savings. He asked us, "Did the house inspector even go into the crawl space?" Yes, the inspector DID go into the crawl space and had told us that he saw no evidence of rodents or house pests. The Terminix guy thinks that the inspector guy must have been blind. Mr. Terminix had found several OLD carcasses in there of loooooooonnnnnnnnnng dead rats.
Quadruple Ew.
Sigh. I don't think we woulda bought this place if I knew the Rats of N.I.M.H. were in the crawl space. You see, the rats are probably in cahoots with the mice. They are using them to slip into the kitchen to bring them food. In exchange for this, they let the mice keep their measley little lives and have a share of the spoils. The rats have most likely also struck a deal with the spiders. They use these behemoths as enforcers to keep other bugs from touching what they consider "their" food supply. Either that or they use them as message carriers. They strap little notes to their eight legs to get messages from one rat colony to the next. Knowing these rats, as I do, they've probably already tapped into our water supply and our electricity......next thing you know they'll be setting up pulley systems in our back yard for mouse relocation projects.
No way, dude. They are SO outta here. I'm telling you right now, losers, pack up and head out to Thorn Valley. You guys ain't lasting more than a week with all the traps we got set around here.
Besides all the food contamination, electricity stealing and Extreme Home Make Over - Mouse Edition, could you imagine stumbling upon this in the middle of the night?!?!?
No spank you.
