It Sucks When You're Wrong

On Tuesday I distinctly heard scritching and scratching coming from inside my walls. Great, I thought, there is a mouse living in the walls. I heard him in the walls behind the toaster and I heard him in the walls between the pantry and cupboards. Those two areas are not even close, so he must have pretty free run back there. I called Tyler to tell him that we have an unwelcome guest in our walls. He mentioned that it was probably already in the house.

Um...NO! The mouse is NOT in the house. Come on, I would have seen mouse droppings or something.

Wednesday morning I was sitting in my living room giving myself a short siesta as I watched kids bustle around getting ready for school and Tyler cart the baby while he cleaned parts of the kitchen (lest you think I am a complete slacker, I had just thrown up or else I would have been helping as well). A movement caught the corner of my eye and I looked down to see a mouse peering out from under the couch. Dang...I was wrong. Really wrong.

Nothing like that to spur me back into action. I took the baby and Mr. Mouse Hunter went to work. Sadly the mouse got back to his recess behind the fridge/oven/dishwasher area. Tyler pulled everything out and much to our dismay it looks like he has been here a while. After the contractor on the house came and did some work for us on the outside siding a while back, they never closed everything up properly and there was a hole leading from the outside to the dishwasher; irresistible to a mouse. When we pulled the dishwasher out there were droppings all over the top. Eww.

I actually think mice are cute. I had some as pets and when my parents found some when I was growing up, I wouldn't let them kill them. We caught them all live and put them in a cage (I think we caught twelve in the end). Apparently I am not so kind when it comes to MY house. Stupid filthy mouse. Tyler set traps right away, and caught one before the day was out. I would like to think it was the only one, but that would be too easy right? In the meantime we have sealed all holes to the outside and we hope that keeps any others out for the duration.

The worst part is finding where this mouse has been. My kitchen drawer full of measuring spoons and spatulas is right next to the dishwasher; found mouse droppings in that drawer along with the drawer next to it. Eww. Just this morning, I realized that he visited the entertainment center since there are droppings on the DVD player and below. Not to mention the couch where I found quite a few droppings (but that couch needs to go anyway). I just don't like the thought of a diseased mouse running around my house. Let's hope he is gone for good. And maybe next time I will trust Tyler's opinion when it comes to these things. For the record, I'm usually the right one...