We have had a little grey mouse living with us for a while. I first realized this when I was sitting in my living room and heard my couch squeak as my kitten was viciously trying to eat through the side of it. My friend and I tried to find the mouse by moving the couch, but of course that was a futile attempt. It didn't work.
Then a few weeks later I was sitting in another room nauseated and strung out on the couch while watching TV. It was then that I saw the filthy little bugger scurry out of my living room into the room I was in. It dashed under the TV dresser, up the fire place, and into the dark wood cove.
I immediately grabbed a cat and coaxed her into the fireplace. She wanted no part of it. So, I grabbed the kitten who was so eagerly trying to catch the mouse weeks ago. He was not so interested anymore. I pulled all the wood out and saw that the little mouse had a little home through a crack in the side wall of the wood cove. Apparently, the only thing my cats care about is posing for the judges....
Day after day our routines are the same... wake up at 7. I sit on the couch as the kids eat breakfast. And, I watch the mouse make its daily run from the living room to the TV room, under the TV, up the fireplace, and into the cove. It was getting ridiculous.
So, off to Walmart we went for mouse killer supplies. Justice was very excited about this. We picked some traps and some cubes of poison. He liked the packages with the dead mice on them. So those were the ones we got. All day he talked about getting the mouse. He told his friends and siblings multiple times about the coming event... He was very excited.
We set the trap that night we bought it. I put a nice hunk of cheese on the trap. By morning it was gone, but the trap was untouched. Later that day I saw our little mouse making his daily run... Taunting me... Like we were on the set of Mouse Hunt the movie and he was following the script.
A few days went on like this. He would even come out and stared at me as I stared at him from the couch. It was becoming a morning ritual.
He was a picky eater.
I would expect nothing less in my home....
During this time I learned of several foods that the little mouse did not like. Clearly, he was a cheese lover.
So cliché'!
Now I had to figure out how to get him from taking the cheese without avoiding the trap. Somehow he would get the food and not trigger it. Or he would get the food and trigger it, but avoid being caught. I have no idea how... and, I was annoyed yet impressed by this little mouse's cunning geniousness.
PEANUT BUTTER...
There is a reason it is one of the greatest condiments!
I deduced that the mouse needed to tug the cheese in order to trigger the trap. It worked! After about a month of watching this little guy run my house on a semi-daily basis, he was caught.
The weird thing is that I put the trap in the fireplace and he ended up dead in my kitten. Bizarre...
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