I Killed a Mouse Today
Earlier this year I noticed a few tiny mouse droppings in my garage, but I thought nothing of it. We live near a big park and a long parkway, so I figured there's lots of rodents and animals running around. It stands to reason that something will seek shelter from the cold winter in my garage. No problem.This spring I noticed that the mouse had been chewing on some plastic packaging for an outdoor extension cord I stored in the garage. Then, later this summer I noticed a small burrow hole in the rotted base of my side garage door and another small hole under my sunroom. I filled in the hole under my sunroom with dirt only to see it appear again a day later.
About a week ago I came home late one night after a ball game and surprised the mouse. When the garage door opened, my headlights caught him running along the edge of the garage wall. He was fat and about the size of a baseball.
And I knew then that I would finally have to do something about it.
So, yesterday I went to Farm and Fleet figuring they would have the largest assortment of varmint killing apparatuses in town. My choices were thus:
A cardboard “live trap” with stickypaper on the inside floor and walls. The mouse goes in and get’s stuck. You don’t have to kill it, just throw the box away with the mouse stuck to the inside. $1.48 for two carboard box traps.
A wire live cage/trap. This is for catching the varmint live, assuming you are going to transport the varmint elsewhere and release it. You can also place stickypaper on the inside. $13. Stickypaper was $3.48 for 2 sheets.
D-Con poison packets or pellets, poison bars, poison sticks. Rodents die within 5 days. About $5.
Electronic traps that electrocute the varmint once it gets inside the trap. One version for $19.95, another for $42.95.
A box trap that traps more than one mouse at a time. They get in, but can’t get out. $15.
Spring traps that crush the mouse in its jaws. $3-$7.
I knew I didn’t want to use poison because I have a dog and I didn’t want the dog to get into it. I also didn’t want the poisoned rodent to die where the dog could devour it. I also didn't want to have to deal with the mess of a smashed rodent.
So, I settled on the wire cage/trap $13, using some poison as bait $3.99.
I figured I’d just submerge the trap in a bucket of water and drown the captured rodent. It's cleaner than the spring traps, and safer and quicker than poison.
So, yesterday evening after work I set up my killing machine.
As I looked for a place to stage my trap, I came face-to-snout with the enemy, a little baby mouse with black beady eyes, big ears, and pointy nose. The thing was tiny and as cute as can be.
It was terrified of me, and sniffed the air in my direction rapidly. I don’t think it knew what I was. He eventually ran off and I set my trap right where I’d spotted him.
This morning he was there in the trap, still terrified. All the poison bait was gone. He tried to run when I approached the trap, but he had nowhere to go, so he ducked his little head under the “flapper” that triggers the cage doors to close. I thought to myself, "Awwwww, just like a dog!"
Apprehensively, I filled up the bucket, picked up the trap, and dropped it in. The trap wanted to float for a moment, but I pushed down gently, and it slid to the bottom, thowing the mouse into a panic.
He struggled mightily, trying to dig his way out of the corners of the cage. He was in a complete frenzy. I felt ghoulish watching over the bucket, so I left him and returned a few minutes later to a silent scene.
I dumped the water, opened the trap, and slid his lifeless, waterlogged body into a plastic bag.
I’m not filled with guilt, but I certainly didn’t like having to kill the mouse that way. But there is no point in relocating them, they are pests and could carry disease. They need to be put down in some fashion. Dying of poison over five days is probably no better.
I tossed plastic bag containing his body into a dumpster at the gas station on the way to work. Let’s hope he has a small family, I don't want to have to do this a dozen times.
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