S-U-N-D-A-Y Emmm-oh-you-essss-eee
The weekend was almost entirely uneventful. This was not a bad thing.
The sole deviation from the tranquil norm came Sunday morning as I hauled myself out of bed to lurch in the general direction of the shower. As I entered the bathroom and turned to flip on the lights, my peripheral vision registered…something. That something was a small dark object that appeared to zip in a fraction of a second under the hallway closet door which was directly across from the bathroom.
"Yipes, what the hell?" was the instinctual first thought of the brain. Second thought was, did I really just see that, or am I just not awake yet? I was pretty sure I saw something, and that something was too darn big for a cockroach. Or at least I hoped as much! This place has been extremely pest free over the couple years I have lived here.
Several minutes later, I had established a blocking perimeter in the hallway with various boxes, the odd laundry hamper, etc. and was ready to brave the closet. Open. Peek. Nothing. Poke boxes. Dead silence.
Being a bit more methodical I eventually managed to flush the quarry: a teensy brown mouse. He did manage to wriggle under the bathroom door and triggered the second round of the chase. Fortunately, there were really only two things to hide behind in the bathroom: a trash can and the toilet brush holder. We went a couple rounds: me flushing him, him racing for the bathroom door, running into the boxes I had set up, but running back into the bathroom before I could move over to try and lift up the box with him inside.
He broke the stalemate by escaping past the boxes and attempting to enter the living room by wriggling through a barrier composed of a giant package of paper towels. This proved to be a poor choice for a barrier as I was unable to goad Mr. Mouse back into the hallway, he managed to wriggle through and escape to a pile of boxes in the corner of the living room.
From there, I kept a sharp watch on that corner and began constructing a highway hemmed by boxes heading from that corner to the front door. No, I did not designate it the M1. I opened the front door and for good measure laid down a laundry hamper as an additional obstacle to try and channel the critter back out into nature.
Sure enough, the furious scampering ensued as planned, down the path and while not out the door, into the hamper. This was actually ideal in my thinking as I could cart my little friend a fair distance away before releasing him. However, he had other ideas and managed to wriggle through the venting in the side of the hamper and dove into a pile of loose carpet. Ten points to the mouse for quick action under fire.
After some rearranging of the barricades I gave it one last try and yanked up the loose carpet. Apparently having had enough, the mouse exited the way he must have entered: through a doggy door retrofitted into the patio entrance used by the previous tenants Chihuahua. As tempting as it was to re-enact the welding scene from "Aliens", I instead implemented a kludge involving a very small plastic cutting board and some heavy books.
Hopefully that will be the last of my mouse adventures. As I said, the place has been pretty much pest-free for the last couple years and I want it to stay that way. Especially since there is always a certain amount of seed and/or pellets floating around due to the birds. It's times like this when a cat is a really appealing creature to have around. Of course, a cat aggressive enough to take care of any rodents might also have issues with the birds. While this could be countered by adding an even bigger bird into the mix, the inevitable outcome would be that the cat would escalate. With Angolan mercenaries.
That would be bad.
The sole deviation from the tranquil norm came Sunday morning as I hauled myself out of bed to lurch in the general direction of the shower. As I entered the bathroom and turned to flip on the lights, my peripheral vision registered…something. That something was a small dark object that appeared to zip in a fraction of a second under the hallway closet door which was directly across from the bathroom.
"Yipes, what the hell?" was the instinctual first thought of the brain. Second thought was, did I really just see that, or am I just not awake yet? I was pretty sure I saw something, and that something was too darn big for a cockroach. Or at least I hoped as much! This place has been extremely pest free over the couple years I have lived here.
Several minutes later, I had established a blocking perimeter in the hallway with various boxes, the odd laundry hamper, etc. and was ready to brave the closet. Open. Peek. Nothing. Poke boxes. Dead silence.
Being a bit more methodical I eventually managed to flush the quarry: a teensy brown mouse. He did manage to wriggle under the bathroom door and triggered the second round of the chase. Fortunately, there were really only two things to hide behind in the bathroom: a trash can and the toilet brush holder. We went a couple rounds: me flushing him, him racing for the bathroom door, running into the boxes I had set up, but running back into the bathroom before I could move over to try and lift up the box with him inside.
He broke the stalemate by escaping past the boxes and attempting to enter the living room by wriggling through a barrier composed of a giant package of paper towels. This proved to be a poor choice for a barrier as I was unable to goad Mr. Mouse back into the hallway, he managed to wriggle through and escape to a pile of boxes in the corner of the living room.
From there, I kept a sharp watch on that corner and began constructing a highway hemmed by boxes heading from that corner to the front door. No, I did not designate it the M1. I opened the front door and for good measure laid down a laundry hamper as an additional obstacle to try and channel the critter back out into nature.
Sure enough, the furious scampering ensued as planned, down the path and while not out the door, into the hamper. This was actually ideal in my thinking as I could cart my little friend a fair distance away before releasing him. However, he had other ideas and managed to wriggle through the venting in the side of the hamper and dove into a pile of loose carpet. Ten points to the mouse for quick action under fire.
After some rearranging of the barricades I gave it one last try and yanked up the loose carpet. Apparently having had enough, the mouse exited the way he must have entered: through a doggy door retrofitted into the patio entrance used by the previous tenants Chihuahua. As tempting as it was to re-enact the welding scene from "Aliens", I instead implemented a kludge involving a very small plastic cutting board and some heavy books.
Hopefully that will be the last of my mouse adventures. As I said, the place has been pretty much pest-free for the last couple years and I want it to stay that way. Especially since there is always a certain amount of seed and/or pellets floating around due to the birds. It's times like this when a cat is a really appealing creature to have around. Of course, a cat aggressive enough to take care of any rodents might also have issues with the birds. While this could be countered by adding an even bigger bird into the mix, the inevitable outcome would be that the cat would escalate. With Angolan mercenaries.
That would be bad.