I Just Want it to End

Two snap traps, baited with fudge, surrounded by ten glue traps. I sprinkled sugar over the glue traps, tossed bits of cheese throughout the drawer, and strolled into the living room with renewed hopes of a mouse-free existence.

A couple noiseless hours later, I visited the "mouse drawer", as it has come to be known. The fudge was gone... the cheese, gone, most other assorted goodies... gonzo. What was still there were the snap traps, picked clean, but not set off. The glue traps were scattered around the drawer. I didn't even separate them, thinking they'd be harder to avoid or shake loose if still connected. I put glue traps under both rear corners where they seem to enter the drawer, which they avoided.

I was downtrodden, as I realized the one mouse we caught with the glue trap was a fluke- they weren't going to work. These mice are somehow smart enough to push or drag the glue traps away from the snap traps and return to them to clean out the eternally replaced free chow.

Sigh... I feel like Mr. Potter after the townspeople bail out George Bailey. Is there no end to these annoying mice and their Building and Loan??? What is it going to take? If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Two ideas that aren't going to work for us are 1) A cat- Tina is extremely allergic and 2) poisons- I don't want a mouse croaking in the wall or the insulation and wreaking up the joint.

ARGH!!!

On an interesting side note, I locked myself out of the house today for the first time. As I took out the trash, I realized the locked on the door was set and thought, "I've got to be careful not to let the vacuum effect from the mud room door pull this thing closed," then I did exactly that less than three seconds later.

A short while later, I bent the screen back and pushed open a basement window, crawling in through the basement. Wincing as paint chips floated into my eye, I reflected that it would have been a terrific idea to have placed one of our extra keys into the lock box by the door.