Mostly Harmless

this-means-war dept

One or more mouse-type individuals — with a death wish — decided to gnaw a hole in one of my microwaveable heated slippers. (The slippers have little pouches filled with wheat(?) grain which heats up in the microwave. You can accomplish the same sort of effect by filling a sock with uncooked rice and sticking it in the microwave for a couple of minutes.)

I was all set to enjoy the toasty warmth of hot slippers when I discovered that one of the slippers was leaking. WTF? Damn rodents!

A quick trip to the “let’s kill things” section of Target ensued where I picked up a box containing 8 little cubes of mouse death. I placed the bait around the apartment, two of the cubes near mouse traps which have been ignored for some time. A day or two later one of the cubes was missing! Huzzah!

I had expected to find that one or more of the cubes ‘o death had been gnawed on — perhaps 1/2 eaten — but the whole chunk of bait was gone without even a crumb left. Did the mouse lasso the thing with his tail and haul it off or am I dealing with a much bigger mouse than I had anticipated?

Since the bait had disappeared so cleanly I was beginning to wonder if I had even put a piece there in the first place. I relocated one of the other pieces to the same location and sure enough it was gone within a couple of days too. Piece #3 has remained there, unscathed, for a few days now. My hope is that the mice die somewhere other than in my apartment.

More Pest Control: If you spill cooking oil you can be assured of finding a metric-assload of ants the next day. If that should occur, remember this: ants love bleach! Or is it that bleach causes them to die a slow and painful death? Oh yeah, it’s the second one.