May 25 2009
Of Mice and Men…
Well, Matt and I have officially experienced a home invasion, less than a year into our marriage. Apparently, it’s a normal part of adulthood, a right of passage that lots of people have experienced… we had a mouse in our house! And, good news/bad news, we discovered that it was actually TWO mice 
YUCK. Fortunately, the mice have been gone for about one week, but it was NOT pleasant experience.
About two weeks ago, we were standing in the kitchen before bed, and we heard some weird noises coming from our walls. Matt mentioned that he thought we had something in the walls, but I said surely not. A day or two later, Matt mentioned that he hated to inform me, but we might need to put out some mouse traps, as he thought he’d seen something scurry across the floor the previous evening. Again, I said surely not (note that I was totally grossed out and we put our food away at night and clean the kitchen regularly, so I wasn’t willing to entertain the possibility). A day or two after that, I went to grab some bread from the top of the fridge. I’d just bought the bread, so it hadn’t even been opened… but it the wrapper was chewed through, and half a piece of bread had been eaten! By this point, I was finally ready to accept the obvious. My acceptance resulted in banning myself from the kitchen for two days.
While buying glue traps at Wal-Mart, another lady told me about her face-to-face encounter with mice in their home. She also told me not to worry, we’d get rid of them. I mentioned the issue to my Mom, and she laughed, and said that they used to get mice when she was little because there was a large field behind their house. This is where I draw the conclusion that mice are apparently a rather normal problem. However, I was sheltered from it as a child. I assume that if my Dad found a mouse, he was smart enough not to tell my Mom about it. And, if my Mom found a mouse, she was DEFINITELY smart enough not to mention it to us kids. Sadly, this time around, there was no one between me and the mice
Note to anyone who has mice in the future: GLUE TRAPS DON’T WORK. Buy the old-fashioned ones. I arrived home from the gym and peered into the kitchen leerily. I saw just enough to jet out of the house and call Matt! But when he arrived a half hour later… the mouse had escaped. In the end, we bought the snap traps and caught two mice. Unfortunately, Matt had to kill both of them, as the traps hadn’t actually killed them.
Well, I’m sorry you all had to read such a disturbing post, but I felt that if we had to brave it, then the least you could do was offer a sympathetic, “Ewww….. I hope that doesn’t happen to us!” I too hope that you never have to experience the terror that is home invasion. But, as several people with similar experiences have told me, “It doesn’t really matter if you clean or put away the food. Once they get in, you just have to get rid of them.”