Wednesday, 2 May 2007

It's a cute infestation...honest!

Last night I went out and it's fair to say I got a leeeeeetle bit drunk.

I arrived home to find Steve in his suit in the kitchen, clasping a burger, (so I knew he was similarly tanked) and Andrew, his lodger, in his bed gear. They were both staring at the kitchen floor in silence. At first I thought maybe they were in the midst of an arguement but it turns out, the reason they were stood there is because Andrew had spotted a mouse.

To be honest, I'm not an overly squeamish girl, and mice don't upset me in the slightest. Unless they are eating my food, which is never a good thing for anyone to do, man or beast. I told them that all we had to do was move all of the food in the bottom cupboards up to the top ones, give them a decent bleach/clean, and then get some little mice traps to catch the cute little blighters. Steve looked at me with big drunk sad eyes and asked what we'd do with them when we caught them, and, noting his distress, I told him we'd release them in small nuclear family groups (how do you sex mice? ) onto the common where they could frolic and play and mate and eat cheese to their hearts content.

So we discussed the options of catching them. Andrew said that these days, traps don’t necessarily contain poison but instead entice them into a little box with some cheese like in the cartoons (a ‘mouse house’ if you will). Alternatively you can get ones with super sticky sheets of paper which they literally stick to. I’m not a fan of this idea as for me it’s like making a mice live out a nightmare. You know the ones when something awful is happening and you try and run, and can’t. I’m not putting them through that. At least with ‘the little box’ you can put something cosy in there so that after they eat the cheese they can have a little snooze before their release.

I can tell what’s going to happen. We’re going to end up with Milly, Molly, Martin, Melvin, Morris, Mini and Morticia the mice, with their own room in the flat. It’ll be mouse friendly, with a bed made of cheese and lots of tiny brushes for whisker grooming, and tiny wheels to spin around for exercise and, well, you get the picture.

And then we can just open the flat up as a nature reserve and people can come and marvel at the moths and the mice and all of nature’s wonderful creatures. Ah-men.

2 comments:

Mas said...

er.... only cute until tehy eat through all your rice and flour packets and start crapping in your bread bin. You would be amazed at teh tiny spaces they can get themselves into. Please don't use the sticky stuff though - thats effectively starving them to death as although you may be saving them a bashing over the head (quick and humane but you have to deal with the dead body) you are condoning a slow agonising ones while their loved ones might be inches away from them. That stuff is fly paper and you just throw it out with the mice attached. :(

Ali P said...

I'd never use the sticky paper, it's really horrid. Infact it's just downright cruel and disgusting. Don't worry Steve's mice will be set free....(a mile or so away, near someone rich's house on Nightingale Lane!)