Alright guys, I have returned from my night and afternoon of slumber so the wait is over. Here is the continuation of the Great Mouse Ordeal of 2014.
We left off with me calling my mom at work to please come save me from the little monster that was now somewhere under my stove. I don't really know why, but I remained on my perch (the top step of my step-ladder) with the old t-shirt slung over my shoulder, and clutching the Swiffer mop. I guess I wanted to be ready if the mouse had a lapse in judgement and decided to come out from under the stove. That didn't happen.
It normally only takes about 20 minutes to make the drive from home to my apartment in Nacogdoches, but I swear it felt like three hours before Mama arrived giggling at my front door. We go over the happenings of the current situation and she makes her way into the kitchen. After poking around under the stove with the mop, the mouse squeaks and one of us screams (I'm not telling you which one of us, but I will tell you that it wasn't Mama). She now decides the best plan of action would be to pull the stove away from the wall. As she pulls the mouse, who is far smarter than I'd given him credit for up until this point, managed to find a small ledge at the back of the stove and pried himself off of the trap. That's when we lost visual contact with the intruder. I still don't know where he managed to get to without us seeing him. We did discover where he was headed when he first scooted his way under the stove though. Whoever cut the hole for the outlet behind the stove did not pay attention to the rule of "measure twice, cut once", in fact based on the hole around that outlet, I don't know that they even measured once. So we had found it, the place of entry.
We decided to call the first person that came to mind who would know how to deal with this little incident, my grandpa. To make a long story short, after about an hour he arrives at my door wielding a can of foam insulation to plug up the hole behind my stove. He also discovers numerous other large holes under my sink where the pipes came in through the wall. He quickly determined that this single can would not do the trick and we set out to the wonderful world of Walmart to purchase another can of foam and some more mouse traps. This trip to Walmart is also pretty blog-worthy, but that will have to wait for another day. We browse through the many varieties of traps before finally settling on one that looks like a hollow hockey puck with a door on it. You were supposed to stick some peanut butter or whatever bait you prefer inside and the mouse would come through the door for a snack and the door would close behind him. Then all I would have to do would be to throw the trap with mouse concealed inside, into the trash and go on with my life. I was very hopeful that between these new traps, the other glue traps I still had left, and the plugging of the holes, my intruder was either already gone or soon would be. One day I'll learn that things aren't ever that simple where I'm concerned. After plugging up all the holes and helping me set the new traps, Mama and Boppa (my grandpa) leave and I head over to Taco Bueno to meet some friends for a much needed night of food and laughs.
It's very quiet in my apartment for the night and most of the next day. I was hopeful that the little demon had somehow manged to get by both me and my mom and exit my apartment through one of the holes under the sink, that we had closed off all of his available entry points, and he would be forced to move on.That idea bit the dust at about midnight Wednesday night.
I had gone into the kitchen sometime after cooking dinner and had noticed a tiny piece of paper sticking out from under my stove. No big deal, I assumed I'd just dropped a piece of a food wrapper or something and I would sweep it up when I gave my apartment a thorough cleaning when I was sure my little visitor had hit the road. Unfortunately, I was wrong again.
After hearing noises around midnight I ventured back into my kitchen and discovered that there was a noticeably larger corner of paper sticking out from under my stove. The glue trap. I knew then that the mouse was stuck, alive, and making his demonic little way back to the front of the stove. After consulting Mama again via Facebook messages, I determined that I would use the handle of my broom to drag the trap and mouse out from under the stove where I would be waiting to carry out my initial plan of covering it with a t-shirt and beating it to death with my Swiffer mop. Unfortunately that didn't happen.
I did as Mama instructed me and stuck the handle of the broom to the glue trap and ever so slowly began to pull the trap toward me. As soon as the trap began to move, the mouse screeched and I jumped. Unfortunately, when I jumped, my hand jerked and yanked the trap upward where it became stuck to the pan drawer under my stove. I had no idea what to do. I tried knocking it loose with the broom, but that didn't work. I had noticed that the mouse had become very quiet after this newest development and I knew that one of two things had probably happened. 1. I had knocked the little booger out when I yanked the trap upward and rammed him into to the bottom of the stove, or 2. I'd managed to knock him off the trap completely. All I knew for sure was that it was getting close to 3 in the morning and I was exhausted and completely out of ideas. I filed probably the most pitiful maintenance request that the apartment complex has ever received, telling them a shortened story of my ordeal and how I had been trying to catch this mouse for almost a full week. I told them that I had actually caught him at least twice, but he'd managed to out-smart me and get away both times. I told them I honestly did not know where he was now, but that he was hopefully still stuck to the glue trap that had somehow become stuck to the bottom of my stove and begged them to send someone to get rid of it.
The next morning at 9:06 AM, I was awoken by my doorbell. I threw on a hoodie and almost jogged to the front door. "You have a mouse?" the maintenance man who is now my hero asked. I told him I did, to which he asked "Can I come get it?" I replied with a "yes, please." and motioned for him to come inside. I led him to the kitchen and flipped on the light only to discover that the mouse had performed a miracle, maybe not for himself, but definitely for me. During the night, he had managed to work his way farther up the trap, eventually causing it to un-stick itself from the stove. After all the fights this little monster had put up for me every time I tried to dispose of it, he simply let out one final weak squeak as my new hero waded him up in the glue trap. As I thanked this kind stranger and let him out the door, I swear I would've hugged him if he had not been holding a dying rodent in his gloved hands.
So that was it, the mouse was gone, and I could live happily ever after. Of course as some of you may know, it takes a while for things to really get back to normal after an ordeal like mine. I spent most of that day cleaning every surface in my apartment. It was during this cleaning that I almost gave myself a heart attack. I was re-washing all of my dishes since I had found droppings in my dish drainer and did not know where else the little monster had visited during his stay. The sponge I was using squeaked when I was cleaning one of my measuring cups and I jumped so high I probably could've landed on the counter. Thankfully I was able to recreate the noise so my nerves settled quickly.
It's been about a month since this whole ordeal took place and I can finally walk around my apartment normally again, although I still turn on the light as I walk into each room. Thankfully as far as I can tell, unlike many of the accounts on google that did nothing but scare me more, there is such thing as just a single mouse.
So there you have it, there is the story of the one week that I really hated living alone. I hope it has been entertaining to anyone reading and I hope the same never happens to you. Until next time, stay awesome. (Think I've found my closing).
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