I asked Roommate L if we had mouse traps. She said yes, glue traps. Those sounded nice, non-lethal, humane. I set a few down. Shortly thereafter, we caught one.
Then I realized the problem: it's stuck there. It was frozen and looking up at us while we discussed our options:
- leave him outside in the cold to starve or chew his legs off
- crush him
- pull him out of the glue and release him
Mouse #2 was later that same night. I believe it was a second mouse, because he acted differently. He writhed in the glue, getting it all over himself. We took him to the end of the driveway and let him go off to another house.
Mouse #3 was this morning. We think it was really Mouse #1 returning. Roommate T pried him out and dumped him in a tupperware with a teaspoon of canola oil. She turned to me and said, "Can you let him go somewhere along Sligo Creek?" I said yes. I put the tupperware in my saddlebag, got on my bike, and rode to the Trail.
I found a nice, dewy meadow, and I got out the tupperware. The mouse was slick with oil, but no glue to be seen. I carried him to a soft patch of weeds and thistle. I dumped him out.
He hung on to some leaves and looked at me. Not moving, just looked at me.
It was like he was thinking, "Wow. What a morning. What is this demon going to do to me next?" Or maybe just, "Where the hell did you take me? This isn't even Silver Spring any more!"
I took a stick and went to poke at him but he was gone.
1 comment:
I lived in a very infested townhouse. I remember thinking I heard a faint squeek for a couple days at one point, only to find a very distrought mouse on a trap under the fridge. I drowned him. From there on I drowned every one I caught, and I checked the traps daily so they would not have to suffer too long. Glue traps are totally f***ed, but I did't know any better way. Snap traps take off a leg so they drag themselves to die a miserable slow death in your walls. Poison the same only with leg intact. Apparently there are some sort of humane box traps, which Aak mentions here. Hmm, that's actually a good solution. Tons of work, though, to catch them and release far from your home.
I considered catching them on the glue traps then crushing under my car wheel, but that would have splattered. In retrospect I could've wrapped them in multiple bags to contain splatter and done that, which is a quicker way to die than drowning. I didn't go to Aak & Co.'s lengths to de-glue. That glue is so good that it didn't even cross my mind.
If I'm in that situation again I'll do the humane traps. And of course bring in a pro who could advise about prevention options such as caulking the walls where they might be getting in.
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