A Mouse in the House

AHHHH....AHHH...Ahhhh.....Ok. I admit it. I'm scared of mice. Yes, I'm a strong independant woman who has lived fearlessly for years. Yet last night, when I saw the twitch of a tail slide behind the hutch, I grabbed the baby and screamed like a sissy for my husband to do something.

But what to do? The last time I saw a mouse I was 12. My dad set traps of some sort and we never saw one again. (I didn't sleep for weeks thinking about it.)

But here we are in a new apartment that I swore I would never move out of.....and there is a mouse. OK, maybe I should realize that not only do I live in a big rat-infested city but aparently, I live in a building with some little rats of their own.

So here is what I'm finding about mice and rats and how to get them out of your apartment. This is the starting point, I will improve upon it as I go.

http://www.pestproducts.com/multi-catch-mouse-trap.htm

Update to Mouse situation: What have I learned: Apparently, despite the antics of the little mouse in Goodnight Moon, a mouse will follow the same trail following the perimeter of the room. So we laid out an assortment of traps along the path we pied the little tail. When I say assortment, we bought every single option they had at Silver Rod (the pharmacy/variety store that keeps late hours in the neighborhood). I drew the line at the wooden contraption with the metal bar that snaps down. That type of trap seemed a little too gross for me. Not to mentions dangerous with a toddler about. It turned out that the cheapest trap worked the best. The flat glue trap that was about $.25 a piece caught our little uninvited guest. Lesson I learned: mice really do squeak. The sound wasn't invented for cartoons. Walking across the kitchen floor, I thought one of the linoleum tiles was a little loose and squeaking. Completely understandable when considering how many times I had washed the kitchen floor in the past 24 hours alone. But then I realized the squeak wasn't lining up to my rocking back and forth. I bent to look under the fridge. The squeak had little eyes. The little mouse suddenly seemed less intimidating stuck there. I still screamed for my husband to come take it away. I couldn't even stay in the apartment until it was over. We also shoved steel wool in every opening that we can find. I think we might be ok.....for now.