Dear Wally
#107
Dear Wally:
Eeeeek. I have mice in my country house for the first
time in 15 years. I’m terrified. What works other than everything I’ve tried
that doesn’t?
-Anonymous
(because, yes, I have used glue traps)
Dear Anony-mouse (Sorry for the cutesy typo- I couldn’t,
errr, not take the bait!):
You ask the
eternal question pocket-protected engineers and cliché slingers have been
asking for ages-- Can we build a better mouse trap? Let’s consider the first ever mouse ‘trap’
which was probably just a hunk of rock ripped off the entrance to the cave and
hurled by a pissed off and possibly
hungry Neanderthal. That probably didn’t
work to anyone’s satisfaction, and if there were enough mice present, he could
have easily found himself staring at a pile
of small rubble 25 feet from where he once had a perfectly usable cave. Not smart, but then again, survival favors
the hairy, me thinks, not the dim or impetuous.
The Neanderthal went extinct, the mouse did not.
So we, if
you will, then invented a slightly better mouse catcher, to wit, the recently
discovered flaming fire stick, which when cocked behind the Caveman’s back and
then released with much force, must also not have worked that well or they’d be
made in China and we’d be able to buy them today in Home Depot.
We can skip over
many failed iterations of the evolving mouse trap (and God knows how many
scorched Neanderthal back hair personal injury lawsuits), and check back in
with recent history’s stalwart: The
spring loaded, neck-crushing contraption that rests on a miniature slab of
coffin-grade, #2 knotty pine. It has all
the trimmings of 1950’s era engineering—byzantine mechanical parts, very few
safety features and ringside seats, if you choose, at a rather gruesome execution.
That eye popping ‘crack’ in the middle of the
night down in the kitchen is enough to yank anyone from a sweet Farrah Fawcett
dream and shiver their timbers. That
mouse trap, which is cheap and readily
available, only reliably catches one thing, I’ll argue: Your money.
Meanwhile,
with every new gizmo’s introduction, the
mouse gets smarter…
I will
confess (and also deny) that I recently saw a mouse in my house, and like you,
it was the first one in 15 years. He was
speedy and wily. He also seemed pretty
industrious and brazen. Out in a field
somewhere, I might even find him cute. Inside though, not so much.
From my
place high atop a chair however, and blubbering like I just won American Idol (ok not that bad), I vowed nothing less than a merciless, Mafia-style execution. Had I an automatic assault weapon at the
ready, I might have laid waste to that whole side of the house and gunned that
little pecker down. Instead, I was
forced to collect myself and journey to Home Depot where I scooped up with the
full breadth of my 5’ wingspan, as many gimmicky contraptions as they make to
conduct an unfortunate experiment of extermination on my own, and unwittingly,
answer the question I had no idea you would ask of me.
What I set
up as my Shock and Awe campaign would make George Bush blush. Listen to this display of firepower: Behind
the microwave where he staged his little sortie, I installed a battery of those mechanical
traps with the only 4 remaining working fingers of mine that hadn’t been
smashed by the Goddamn spring during the set up. (I never went to artillery school). Generous hunks of sacrificial Gouda cheese
delicately placed on the hair trigger platform awaited a greedy mouse about to
make the worst mistake of his truncated life.
Just beyond this impenetrable array,
I placed a solid square yard of glue traps, end to end, that would take a miniature mouse jetpack to
traverse.
Yes a kinder,
gentler, more patient me morally disagrees with this inglorious and decidedly
cruel means of dispatch. All good and I
get it. But when YOU see a mouse cha-cha
past the clacking spring traps, snack on the poison with nary more than a smile
and a burp of sated content, then run over a piece of toast you left on the
counter in broad daylight like he’s a contestant on American Gladiator, you will
find yourself reaching for the glue
trap. Trust me.
Anyway, beyond
that mine field , I set up a low income housing project of 10 self-contained
mice ‘hotels’ (Single occupancy, after-hours
check in available! Complimentary
‘welcome’ snack. Sorry, no HBO!)
Beyond that,
AREA 35, as I call it--The special operations theater of psychological torment:
1) Ultra high frequency rodent repeller hocked on late night TV that I fell for. And 2) The big guns of deterrence--- Setting
Pandora to Justin Bieber, (an even higher pitched, irritating frequency).
Then, as the
final hurrah, I coaxed the very leery outdoor cat in for a night with a
saccharine welcome that we both knew was utilitarian and fleeting. Pitched it as a working vacation, I did, and
sealed the deal with a pillow by the wood stove. We were equally suspicious of each other, but
stranger alliances have been forged in the name of war.
Then I sat
back and waited. A couple of days.
The
results? This is the million dollar
question. My mouse is not of this
world. He is more crafty and agile than
I even imagined. I watched him skate,
dance and mock his way from A to B.
Right over ALL the stuff I laid
out. Including the lazy cat who was in thrall
by the warm woodstove despite my goosing prod with a broom handle.
So no,
nothing works, I’m afraid, except bulldozing your house and starting over.
Until you do
so, I will at least leave you with a lesson recently taught to me by a small
mouse who gazed at a tempting hunk of cheese and passed it by with a knowing
wink: There is no free lunch.
-Wally
Got a
question for advice columnist or need him to bulldoze your house? Email him at cwn4@aol.com
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