Today’s post is by guest author, Aleks Haecky. He is a long time observer and student of nature whose writing never fails to move me. Here he managed to make me laugh out loud and groan in sympathy. Enjoy.
Of Mice and Math
cause follows effect
problem trails resolution
begetting begets
When I saw a mouse cross my one curtain rod, in broad daylight, while I was sitting below reading "Ann of Green Gables", that was the last straw. The mice had to go! I had already experienced the day before how live traps were not the solution. I put up several, and successfully lured mice into them with peanut butter and almonds, carried them out the door and down the driveway, all the way to the ditch where I dumped them into the leaf litter, only to see them take off in a beeline back towards the house, just like my neighbor had warned me. She told me of taking a mouse to the far end of her four-acre property, and the mouse running, to have them both arrive at her front porch at the same time. The mouse looked at her, pleading, and, unfortunate for her, she melted and let her back into the house. Shortly after she reported mice running over her pillow and urine smell in kitchen cabinets. I suspect the cute rodent had a cute litter of cute babies.
My first sign that I had a problem was hearing rustling sounds from the drawer under my stove a few weeks ago. It sounded as if gnomes were rummaging through my collection of old cookie cutters. I ignored it. Ignoring is a terrible instinct we apply when we want unpleasant experiences to un-exist. It didn't work. The sounds persisted into the next day, and when I opened the drawer, I was met by a waft of "that smell" and the sight of scattered pellets. Also, a chewed up plastic bag and a ball of paper shreds in a corner mixed with cat hair. If your nose has ever been assaulted by the stink of rodent urine, it will never forget that acrid, penetrating smell that let's you no longer avoid the truth. You have been invaded.
I cleared everything out of the drawer, threw away everything chewed, ran the rest through the dishwasher, cleaned with natural soap and baking soda to no effect. So I resorted to heavy-duty bleach cleaner. While the mouse's violation of my boundaries may be natural, dealing with the odor required unnatural chemicals. I apologized to the environment. I felt the tension around my live and let live principles tighten.
That night, I didn't sleep much. The cat was off the hook, bouncing off the walls, making a new, joyfully pleading sound, chasing something from the pet room through the living room into my bedroom. "Go to sleep!" I yelled, and eventually, I did. I smelled the success of the night's hunt when I dragged myself into the kitchen for coffee.From under the papa-san chair, I collected two little bodies to dispose of. That was the end of that, right? Of course it wasn't. I discovered that the closet with the pet food had been breached, a bag of koi pellets spilled, two nests built, one in the corner of the shelf, one between the folds of an old blanket kept just in case. I tore it all apart, tossed chew toys, scrubbed the shelf and floor, and washed old dog toys. I packed every pellet of fish food and cat kibble into heavy duty plastic buckets. I got rid of most of the smell, but, getting ahead of myself, I will tell you that the remnants of the smell lingered for several weeks.
Once again, I thought I was done. But there were flitting the shadows. Small flashes of movement at the edge of my peripheral vision. At night when I was reading quietly, in the morning, after swinging my legs over the edge of my bed, and then finally, that one, across the curtain rod during the day.
Sometimes, co-existence is not an option. Sometimes, we have to establish our boundaries with forceful messaging. I bought three electric traps. They are expensive and effective. I wanted the mice gone, yes, dead by necessity, but not suffering. Let's just say, it worked. For the next week, every day, I caught several mice in those traps. I had no idea there were that many. I read that a mouse can have up to a dozen pups ten times a year starting around six weeks old, for a lifespan for a year and more. One female mouse equals 120 pups in her live - the math comes out staggering. Compound littering is apocalyptic. After a year, we are looking at over 25 thousand mice.
Even with successful trapping, the cat still bounced around the house almost every night. Once I heard a mouse squeal. I reminded myself that it was natural. What was the cat feeling when it was clearly enjoying this chase. What did the mouse feel being relentlessly chased to exhaustion? Was it cruel of me to turn around and try to sleep? I can't turn off empathy. I am glad I can't. Yet, "cruel" is a moral judgment apart from Nature. I live with the tension, because I can't live with the filth and health risks brought by the unwelcome invaders.
How did they get in? Easily. I keep the doors open during the day, and mice can squeeze through gaps the size of a pencil. They can climb walls, and the cat door is just a flap, really, a dog door big enough for a husky, may she rest in peace. My neighbors complained about mice, too, this year. Last year, it had been ants. The year before, spiders, and before that, so many cockroaches, you could see them swarm out of sidewalk cracks at dusk, yes, just like in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
I hear the cat door lap go "flap", then I hear "the sound". The sound my cat makes when she wants me to come see. And there she stands, looking up at me proudly, gingerly holding a mouse in her jaws. She puts it down gently. The mouse sits, stunned. The cat looks at me. "I brought you a gift!" her body language says. What do I say? Before I can say anything, the mouse runs towards the closet, and in less than a blink of the eye, the cat is after it. The mouse wins. The cat sits in front of the closet. Now, we wait? Not really. She gets up, stretches, yawns, stalks towards the door, looks up at me before exiting left stage. "I'll just get another one!"
Copyright 2024 by Aleks Haecky. Reprinted with permission from the author.
Lovely to read your mouse stories!
- When you drop mice off away from your house, make sure it's near a neighbor you don't like...or at least someone who voted for the wrong candidate.
- Rats are exponentially worse than mice...and smarter, too.
- Coyotes eat mice and other rodents a as a staple food - easily over 1000 per year. So do rattlesnakes, around 200, in average. When have you last seen either?
Oh my goodness. Subject matter notwithstanding, you are a fabulous writer!
We once had a mouse in the house. I told my then husband that we had a mouse. He insisted we did not.
We had a two year old Collie at the time who knew we had a mouse. Unlike your hunt to the kill cat, our dog was afraid of the mouse.
One night, my spouse came home late to find me reading on the couch and the collie, named Moose, cuddled up, refusing to get off the sofa to greet him.
Why isn’t Moose coming to see me? He’s afraid of the mouse. There’s no mouse. Ok. I didn’t feel like debating what I knew to be true.
That night, my husband who slept in the nude, these were pre children days, put in his robe and got up to make a late night snack. I heard a shriek, followed by something hitting the floor and a whole lot of cursing.
As my husband was rapidly putting on his pants, he informed me he was going to the rassin frassin all night Shoppers for a mousetrap.
I asked him with a smirk, what happened? Did the mouse climb up your robe and try to swing on your vine?
He was not amused but I was in stitches while feeling verily validated.
That’s my mouse story.