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the mouse

mouse trapsI was not going to tell the story of this mouse because I knew my evil blog-commenters would ridicule me. However, after reading Karyn Bosnak’s mouse-story I figured I would go ahead and tell mine anyway.

Basically Monday I am reading in bed when I see something stirring. I look up and see a mouse creeping out from under my dresser! So I dash out to the local bodega. They have two types of traps: spring traps and glue traps. The idea of a spring rap under my dresser seems unappealing. I’m afraid I’ll step on it and snap my toe. So without really considering things I get a glue trap.

I set out two, just in case, baiting them with a spoonful of H’s birthday cake. (Sorry H.! But it was getting stale anyway). So I am drifting off to sleep when I hear rustling. I turn on the light and sure enough, the mouse is trapped!

Now this is the part I did not really consider: what to do with a trapped mouse. I figure this is a problem for the morning. So I grab a garbage pail, empty it out and pop it over the trapped mouse. Then I settle back down to sleep.

miceI am just dozing off, again, when I hear it: SQUEEK SQUEEK SQUEEK! The mouse is squeeking! And it is loud! Maybe it’s echoing inside the garbage pail, I don’t know.

Now I am afraid to lift the pail. Maybe the mouse has freed itself! Maybe it is angry. I don’t want an angry mouse running around my apartment.

I slide the pail across the floor and into my kitchen. At one point the mouse starts squeeking again and I jump back. But I manage to get it into the kitchen. Deftly, I slide it onto a map-book. Then holding the map-book to the can I flip the can. Mouse, glue-trap and little bits of cake are now in the pail.

Looking inside, I can see the trapped mouse. All four of its paws are stuck to the glue-stick and it is twitching its body to try and get free. I feel a little bad.

Now WTF am I going to do with a trapped mouse? I don’t really want to conk it over the head with a hammer. I coud just toss it in the trash but I have images of the mouse slowly dying of starvation. Why should it have to suffer like that?

Why-oh-why hadn’t I bought the snap-trap?

I decide there is only one thing for it: I am going to drown the mouse. I put the pail in the bathtub and start running the water. The glue-trap bobs and then floats up. But the mouse is on bottom side. There is about six inches of water in the pail. I figure the mouse must have drowned.

Then I see it: a little mouse snout, poking out of the water. Little whiskers. Somehow the mouse has twisted its body around and is still trying to breathe.

I turn out the light and go to bed, trying unsuccessfully to put the image out of my mind.

When I wake up in the morning there is a drowned mouse in a pail in my bathtub.

33 comments to the mouse

  • Eeek!

    I had a mouse last year in my apt in Spanish Harlem. With neither a bucket nor any form of mousetrap (and no bodegas open at 1am), I ended up spraying the mouse, who was hiding behind my radiator, with Lysol. I don’t know what happened to him, but I never saw him again…

  • That story made me really sad. I NEVER would have been able to do that 🙁

  • themofo

    Well, I guess the best laid plans of mice and men often do go awry…

  • I didn’t know what else to do! If the store had some catch-and-release mousetraps I would have bought those.

  • In law school we had mice; when given the same option by the NYU housing folks, we chose to try an ultrasonic thing instead. We had to pay for it ourselves, but it worked — you plug this device into the wall and it emits an ultrasonic noise that keeps the mice away. We also sealed all of our food up if it wasn’t in the fridge. Extra added bonus — no dead, maimed, or otherwise trapped mice.

  • Oy. I had a mouse a while ago. My super insisted on putting glue traps in, but fortunately the mouse never came back (one of the benefits of being a neatnik: nothing for rodents to eat), and a day or two later the super filled the likely entry way behind the stove with steel wool.

    While the glue trap was out, I was plagued with guilt about what would happen if I did catch a mouse. I finally decided that the most humane way to dispatch it would be to put it in the freezer. I’m glad it never came to that, because I don’t think I could do it.

    JBL came up with a better solution after the fact: put a bucket in the middle of the room, stack books in the shape of a ladder leading up to it, and balance an empty toilet paper roll with peanut butter in the end on the top book so it hangs over the lip of the bucket. Mouse goes after the peanut butter, falls in the bucket, and you have an instant catch-and-release program.

  • mum

    Do you remember the tail of Evan’s friend’s mouse which we house sat. It escaped from its less than sturdy home, and we figuresd the cat had eaten it, so we bought a lookalike for the friend. BUT a week later, when your dad was visiting, and sleeping on a mattress on the floor of your room, he found the mouse, when it ran over him in the night……

  • Jenn

    That is SO sad. I also had the ultrasonic devices. Not expensive, about 30 dollars for 2 or 3 devices that plug into the wall. Never saw another mouse again. Please try those and stop drowning mice!

  • This is the one and only mouse I’ve seen in seven months living in my apartment, so I’m hoping I won’t have to worry about it again. I’m also considering getting a cat, although not to deal with mice.

  • CL

    I think it’s sad that people are writing “how sad” and not telling you off. Next time, take it outside and pour nail polish remover over the glue and let the poor thing run free.

  • Jenn

    CL, are you a moron? Pour nail polish remover on the glue trap with the mouse on it? You don’t think that would kill the mouse? What’d done is done. Nothing Derek can do know except know for the future.

  • CL

    Know WHAT for the future? Seems like he may still torture the next one. If a tiny furry snout didn’t inspire any ideas on how to free the poor thing, I was just trying to provide one. There must be a better way to just trap and release those poor little guys in the future, without having to torture them. I hope he finds one.

    To answer your other question, I’m not a Mormon, but I find them to be respectful, industrious people on the whole. I was in Utah last year, in fact, and they were real nice. Didn’t even make me take the classes. If you are in Utah, check out Antelope Island. It’s quite beautiful at sunset.

  • Haha … but there’s not going to be a future! This was the one and only mouse. Unless I get a cat and it finds and tortures another one. But yes I am done with glue-sticks.

  • alex

    the beauty of tom & jerry is that neither ever died. thanks for depressing me, derek. got prozac, anyone?

  • RTG

    That was sad.

    But at least your apartment is vermin-free!

  • I was so upset when I first read this. Honestly, I was mad at you and sick and sad, but then thought, “Well, what choice was there?” I don’t know how to get a live mouse off of a glue trap (haven’t googled yet) and am not sure I’d even be able to without really freaking out and screaming the whole time.

    Literally a day or two later, I went on vacation and forgot to remove my catch & release trap from under my kitchen cart and came home to find that my catch & releaser had caught but no one was home to release. So, yeah, I was really fu*king horrified and upset and threw the whole trap out in the trash.

    His little cousin came tip toeing into my living room while I was watching the Price is Right at like 11:30 at night (I TiVO it) and I thought it was going to be a Jaws Revenge kind of thing. I’ll never go the glue trap route (esp. after your tale) but the catch & release things really don’t get RID of the problem. They find their way back very quickly as I have watched one of my releasers do. I’ve started walking them across the four lane Northern Blvd so they can’t do that anymore and I’ve caught about seven more.

    Where there’s one, there’s another. Get yourself a cat. June is cat adoption month and I just did PR for the Meow Mix House so I can hook you up with some great pussy.

  • ariana

    Oh please Kambri. They’re fucking invading vermin. Kill ’em. Make them suffer. Teach them that running across a floor you’ve paid big money for is not they’re right. They took the risk. They die. In horrible, excruciating pain. The bastards…..

  • Peggy

    Well Derek, I came across this website while looking up sites on New Zealand. (I have a new fascination with the country. I have no idea why. I’ve never been there.) Anyway here I am on your site not much on New Zealand but I’m still interested because I’m from the Boston area myself. (Little Papi is so cute.) The reason I’m commenting is because I had a similar mouse problem. I went to the market and had bought a bag of sunflower seeds. They fell out of the bag in the trunk of my car. Well, this mouse found the bag of seeds and was loving it. I took out the bag but I still found mouse remnants in my car the next day so I placed one of those catch and release traps in my trunk with a few sunflower seeds to lure him hoping that I could get rid of my problem. Well my mouse friend figured that if he stood on the trap a certain way then the seeds would fall out without having to actually go in to get them himself. Someone told me to try peanut butter. Aha! He can’t make that slide out of the trap. Next day I tried the peanut butter and he flipped the trap on it’s side and went in to eat the peanutbutter without the trap closing on him. I thought maybe it’s just a fluke. I tried the peanut butter again the next day but nope. It was not a fluke. He did it again and again he got the peanut butter. Now I’m thinking of that movie Mouse with Nathan Lane. I think I have the mouse from hell. I thought of the glue trap but I knew that I didn’t want to find a squeaking live mouse on it so I did the next most humane thing I could think of – poison. (I’ve seen used glue traps that are empty with lots of fur on them and all I could think of was that there is a mouse out there with no fur just thankful to be alive. Not a pretty picture.) I know. Poison is not humane in the least. So I put the poison in my trunk and now I have no more mouse problem. End of story. I wouldn’t try the poison indoors though because they may die inside the walls and you will smell them for a few days. So there is my mouse story. Thanks for sharing yours. Very amusing.

  • joe mouse killer

    Mice are PESTS, they should be eliminated from the home.
    Their poop can kill:
    http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/hantavirus.htm
    Not to mention the very expensive damage they can cause to your structure.
    (do you kill mosquitos? why is that ok?)

  • Johnny B

    How to Get Rid of a Mouse on a Glue Trap Quickly

    by Johnny Badass

    1. Set glueboard (bait if you want). (Works best in travel areas where they can’t see it entering the kitchen, I’ve got 4 days in a row next to the refrigerator. They really can’t avoid it if they want in.)
    2. Come downstairs into kitchen (or affected area where traps have been set) to find squeaking, struggling mouse on board.
    3. Celebrate like it’s X-mas morning- another catch!
    4. Lift glueboard, see if little bastard is still alive.
    5. Get gallon storage bag from cabinet.
    6. Insert squirming, squeaking mouse in bag.
    7. Squeeze air out of bag.
    8. Seal bag.
    9. Take squirming, squeaking mouse sealed in bag outside.
    10. Smash against brick or concrete wall. Repeat until mouse isn’t no longer squirming/squeaking.
    11. If too difficult for you, flip trap upside down, drop to ground, and step on. If excessively celebrating, you may jump up and down.
    12. If still too difficult, ignore steps 5-11. Boil lots of water in big pot.
    13. Dump boiling water in pail or bucket.
    14. Insert mouse on trap. Over for the mouse in 10 seconds or less. Ignore screeching. (Hey, it works on Lobster, so I don’t wanna hear it. *shrug*)
    15. If still too much for you, skip steps 12 and 13. Fill pail/bucket with water.
    16. Take pail/bucket outside.
    17. Insert squirming, squeaking mouse.
    18. Go back inside and watch TV.
    19. Wait ten minutes, check on mouse. If dead, dispose of in nearest trash receptacle. If not, watch a movie. Guaranteed dead by end of movie.

  • juanita

    we have some mice caught on glue traps… tonight we are going to freeze one.. put one in a sealed plastic bag and put another (if we can) in the fish tank to see if the mean fish will eat it. Im sure it sounds a little cruel.. but its for science.

  • Harry

    I’m having the same problem… I’ve got two mice caught on glue and alive. I was hoping I could free them but the process seems to complicated. Anyway, if the mice are really freed using some vegetable oil or eucalyptus oil, they would be oiled up, wouldn’t be able to run/jump and would probably use as food to the first cat in the neighbourhood that got to them. I’ve been living with them for over a year now… they didn’t bother me really (as long as they didn’t wake me up), I did hear them sometimes at night but that’s all. In the last month or so, they started to leave their fecies on my kitchen dashboard (altough there was no food on it), in my kitched cupboard and all over the place. Altough I do love them and have a hard time watching them die I cannot afford cleaning and washing all the dishes from my kitchen every 2 days. I’m panic about disease they can carry and that’s all. I’m off to find some more humane traps but if I can’t get any…. they will see glue again. And no, I’m not going to step on them, kill them with a knife, drown them or anything else… I left them on my balcony at 0 celsius hoping the cold will get them as soon as possible.

  • ariana

    Oh Just Kill Them Harry! Be a Man!

  • Dave

    I caught one last night and it was squeaking and squirming pitifully. I put the whole glue trap in a plastic bag and stepped on it – not enough to completely squash it and send guts flying all over the place, but enough to put it out of its misery.

    Catch and release is for fish, because you want the fish to come back so you can catch him again. Mice need to be killed, unappealing as the task is, because mouse droppings are something you just don’t need to see in your kitchen.

  • Scott

    I caught two in glue traps this morning, and I’d hesitate to say I’d do it again. I read up on some recommendations that they should be decapitated – haha like you can find the neck on a trembling ball of fluff. I drowned them both in a bucket. They struggled like mad for about 3-4 secs then that was it. I figured that crushing would be much worse for both me and the mouse. Still there were TOO MANY getting TOO COCKY running about the house. Undecided whether I’d use them again.

  • tanya

    I just put 2 down tonight for the very first time! Having a terrible problem… I let you know 2moro how I get on!…I just hope their dead b4 I get to them!.. (wishful thinking lol..)

  • remorseful_gluetrapper

    I have to respond to some very early (2006) posts:

    The ultrasonic noise generators will irritate mice enough to stay away at first–but their hunger drive will eventually bring them back. That’s when they’ll learn that the noise, while irritating, isn’t dangerous. I got about a month of mouse-free living out of mine before the poor sucker currently trapped in glue behind my closet re-appeared. Check the internet for the research on the ultrasound devices and you’ll see what I mean.

  • Dustin

    I use glue traps, and I love them! They don’t kill the mice right away, so I can have the pleasure of doing it myself. I have seven of them set in the house right now, and I can tell you where they all are. I check them every day, usually twice a day, because I don’t want them dying on the trap and stinking up the house. Never mind cruelty, they’re fucking mice!

    But when I notice one (I usually hear it before I have to look), I’ll grab something disposable like an empty toilet paper roll and press on the mouse to make sure it’s stuck good, and I take the trap elsewhere to do the mouse in. I have whacked them in the head with a hammer, but that’s too messy. I’ve tossed them into flame, but I don’t actually get to see them die.

    It seems that drowning them in the toilet is the best because I can watch and then just toss the trap in the trash. They drown really quickly, and they don’t struggle much, so it doesn’t seem like to bad a way to go. I just like that it’s at my hand they die because it’s in my house they’re pissing and shitting everywhere.

  • Jim

    I drop them in a plastic trash bag, then fill the bag with CO2 from my bicycle kit. They breath in the CO2, pass out immediately, and die of suffocation without suffering. Google “CO2 tire inflator” or visit your local bike shop.

  • Johanna

    Dustin-Have you been checked for serial killer-ness?

  • MouseCatcher

    I’m trying to find out how long a mouse can hold its breath for.

    I’ve got one *right now* in a bucket of water, held down by a bottle of Windex. It’s AWFUL but these New York City mice are too smart to get snagged by a conventional trap.

    Mice are definitely not okay to have around the house, cute as they are. A cat is really the best way to keep them out…

  • Nikki

    I wonder if everyone would be saying ‘how sad’ if they ate through your electrical house wiring and caused a fire killing you. The mosquito comment is right on.

  • Hope you all die a horrible suffering death. Your the vermin of the earth, twisted disgusting people!!!!! Your causing suffering to a tiny animal. You’re beyond help and evil

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