Well, it didn’t take long to figure out we had a mouse problem. My first clue was the trail of mouse turds all throughout my baking utensils and loaf pans in the bank of drawers at the far end of the kitchen. Out everything went…
A few days later I heard some rustling in the garbage can under the sink. Morbid curiosity forced my fingers to gingerly open the cupboard door and oh, so carefully pull the garbage can out from underneath it’s cover. Three brown furry creatures leapt out of the can and hightailed it to the back corner where they disappeared through the gap between the cabinet and the wall. Great! A mouse highway…
I found the next intruder inside a bag of corn-based cat litter stored in the back closet. Out he went onto the back porch, where he promptly jumped off the edge and raced into the bushes. He was joined a few days later by a much younger fellow, who was too small to jump out of the garbage can once he’d had his fill. Good luck to both of them…
But the day I found mouse turds along the back of my stove, I’d finally had enough. Now it was war, and I was going to show the furry hoard who was boss of my kitchen. So off I went to Canadian Tire to buy some mouse traps.
However, once I started looking at the options, I felt a twinge of guilt. The majority of the traps, including the “humane” ones, were filled with poison. Now let me make it clear, I have nothing that personal against mice. They’re kind of cute actually… they remind me of the gerbils I had as a kid. But mice don’t belong in my kitchen.
Ultimately, I settled for a few packages of steel wool to block the hole underneath the sink and half a dozen ultrasonic rodent repellents which I plugged into every outlet inside my kitchen. So far, so good. No more mouse turds. For the record, I will not be responsible for what happens if the mice venture outside the kitchen and into the domain of my three cats…
