Since you're all dying to know...

Since you're all waiting with bated breath, I will bring you the next episode in the mouse installment.

One of the other girls from my yoga teachers' training program taught her first class yesterday (mine is on Thursday). I ran into another girl, also from the program, in the elevator. "I thought this would be over when I got married," I told the girl. Afterward, I realized how silly that sounded. All I meant was, I lived in a nicer apartment building after I got married. But she laughed and said, "Oh, you still get mice even when you're married."

There were two guys in the elevator, and one pointed out that Home Depot sells sonic devices for $6.99. I think that's what KitKat was talking about. So we went to Home Depot and a man who had obviously been through the mouse drill assisted us. He didn't even work there, but he was very helpful.

"Those work," he said, gesturing to the sonic devices. "They will be gone."

Meanwhile, D was browsing the have-a-heart traps and found one for small squirrels. A man who did work at Home Depot told him it was overkill, and he should get a glue trap instead.

Random Man said, "Glue traps don't work."

So we bowed to Random Man's superior knowledge of rodent habits, and took Home Depot man's suggestion to get steel wool. He said they might be coming through the pipe under our kitchen sink, and mice can't chew through steel wool. Also, apparently mice are more of a problem in winter. They want to get out of the cold. That would explain why we haven't seen them in this apartment before.

Don't you feel educated now?

Comments

Caro said…
Why should they stay outside when it's warm in your house? LOL
Anonymous said…
One issue I had was that I bought that little sonic device thing, but I didn't know how the mouse was getting in. I worried that if my cat had brought the mouse in, the mouse might not know how to get out of the house and away from the sonic device. I thought the poor thing might starve to death because he hadn't come in through any hole or anything.
Bearette said…
D was concerned about that too. He thinks the mouse probably came through the kitchen pipe, so we'll give it a couple of weeks before we patch up the pipe with steel wool.
Mike said…
The other issue with glue traps is that the animal really wants to get unstuck -- and will often do physical harm to itself in order to get free. They're not as humane as they pretend to be.

(I love that my first comment to your blog is about pest control. Later, when others ask, "Was it really that magical?" You can say, "Yes. Yes it was.")
Bearette said…
Hehe. Exactly.

The sonic devices seem to have really worked. I could tell the random man in Home Depot knew what he was talking about.
Bill said…
Hi, Bill here just checking things out (friend of tarasophia). We had a huge mouse problem in our old house (equals many possible openings) here in Portland OR when they razed some old streetcar barns across the street from us last winter. We first tried the humane traps and they did not work at all. Unfortunately, we're deathly allergic to cats so that wasn't an option, although our neighbor offered to let us take her cat in for a few days.

We did try (very reluctantly) glue traps, based on a recommendation from our local hardware store. Now, I usually have a pretty strong constitution, but the glue traps are just mean and sad. I won't go into further details, I just wouldn't recommend them to anyone. The old-school wood and wire traps are definately a better (and more humane) option.

I will have to try one of these sonic contraptions if the mice invade our home again. My one question, though... are they upsetting to dogs ears too?
Bearette said…
Hi Bill! The packaging said that dogs and cats are OK with the sonic devices. And they really work. D saw the mouse 2 nights in a row; then we put up the devices, and we haven't seen the mouse at all. Apparently it does weird things to their nervous system, so they just wanna get outta there! I recommend them.

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