Mouse In The House

We live in an old house, not a Century Home, or anything glamorous, just old. Despite the fact we have 4 (obviously useless) cats, we very often get mice in the walls, and sometimes they venture out. Now my dear husband, who put himself through school working at a vets, hates mice, won't go near them. I won't go as far as to say he screams like a girl, but it comes pretty close.  My kids who, despite the fact they all have pet hamsters, are also terrified of mice, which leaves yours truly, when it comes to catching them.

The mice invasion gets worse during the winter and so one evening recently when we heard a scrabbling in the kitchen walls, we knew we'd have to take action. Believe me, if a mouse gets stuck in the wall and dies, the stench is like nothing else, and usually lasts 2 weeks.  We had a hole cut in the wall and were waiting to trap the critter when it came out, only to have it dart behind the stove.  Rob pulls out the stove, whilst I go in to apprehend the villainous rodent. Rob stayed back at a safe distance, while Lindsay took up look-out duty on a chair. Fortunately Sid and Grady are asleep, because this already has the makings of a scene from The Three Stooges.

Unfortunately, I'm not as swift as I used to be, so the mouse escaped, ran across the floor accompanied by a chorus of screams and took refuge under the fridge. So back goes the stove, and out comes the fridge. Rob, my hero gets a really long stick and starts poking under the fridge hoping to flush out the mouse. Lindsay has the flashlight, but she is hopping about and can't keep it still.  One particularly vicious jab from the stick and the mouse escapes the fridge, only to flee back under the stove.

Back goes the fridge, out comes the stove - again.  By this time it is after midnight, and I've just about had enough. Rob decides to barricade the bottom of the fridge and block off the doorway to the dining room, and back I crawl behind the stove. Can't see worth a dam because no one will come any closer with the flashlight.   But sure enough, there is the poor little creature, cowering in the far corner. I lunge for it, miss, hit my head on the wall, stand up, hit my head on the cupboard, and start a string of curses which I won't repeat here.  Rob and Lindsay think this is hilarious, but as my father always used to say "He who laughs last , laughs the longest", and sure enough the laughter stopped abruptly as Rob & Lindsay trip over themselves trying to get out the way of the mouse, which hot foots it across the floor, up and over Rob's barricade,  into the dining room and under the buffet.

As far as I'm concerned, the mouse has won, and I'm happy to let him have his hard earned victory. Of course, that wasn't the end if it, but I'll save the next episode of the Mouse Wars for another day. And the four cats ? They were nowhere to be seen.