The Horror

Okay, Peter and Brittany asked for it. If you're squeamish, stop reading this post now.

Last year, we had 37 mice in our house from November to January. We set up a huge crackdown and caught 14 in a 48-hour period. It was awful. There was no place in our house that was safe. One night before the big crackdown, I sat at the dining room table facing the living room and could see multiple mice at the same time. Isaac was away at work for hours more and Ellie was sleeping. I called my dad sobbing and he came over to sit with me until Isaac got home.

During the crackdown, there were dead mice all over the house. Pretty bad were the ones caught in glue traps and still alive. Isaac was working a lot of hours at the time, so I was home alone with a two-year-old all day every day and into the night. I remember telling Ellie to go wait in another room while I faced down a live mouse making its way across the middle of the living room floor with a glue trap stuck to its leg. I grabbed the heavy grill spatula, closed my eyes, and whapped it until it stopped making noise. Then I took the grill tongs, wore potholders, and gingerly dropped it outside the back door for Isaac to deal with when he got home. Sadly, I had to do this more than once.

The worst story happened at night. Isaac and I were in bed falling asleep when I felt him jerk. Then he sat up and didn't say anything. I demanded to know what had happened. A mouse had run across his ear (on our bed!) and almost onto my pillow. Petrified for his life should a mouse contact me, Isaac reached out reflexively and actually grabbed the mouse and threw it against the wall. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. The mouse just lay there stunned on our bedroom floor.

Another bad story: We spent so much money and effort on mousetraps that Isaac decided to see if the glue traps were reusable. So he took one with a live mouse outside and tried to pull the mouse off. They're not reusable. He tore the legs off the poor mouse. He's still a little traumatized by that.

THAT is why I am so frightened for this year. We plugged up as many holes as we could, but I am pretty sure we're still missing a major mouse highway into our house.