Last week, I was having a pretty good day. I’d just gotten back from the grocery store, which always makes me happy, and was starting to unload my food. I went to put something in the cabinet next to my refrigerator, where I keep tupperware, plastic bags, saran wrap and other miscellaneous items and…I noticed mouse droppings.
Ugh.
Not a Lindsay original photo...
My parents have had mice, so I didn’t panic or immediately call an exterminator, but I was thoroughly grossed out. A friend later pointed out to me that of the infestations you can have, mice are probably the best one – that might sound gross, but they’re better than squirrels, raccoons, or jumping spiders that crawl over your face at night. Yeah.
This was one of those days though that I wished someone else was here to deal with this, but I looked to the left and I looked to the right, and it was just me. Awesome. I proceeded to take everything out of the cabinet. I threw out anything questionable, from the open boxes of Ziploc bags to the candle they had clearly been nawing on. I put anything I planned to keep that could be washed in the dishwasher and washed it on the hottest cycle. I went back to the grocery store and picked up new tupperware containers, new supplies, Clorox wipes, and two big plastic containers to put my clean and new things back in. I also got D-con, a mouse poison.
D-Con
Now. I know there will be some of you that will argue with my poison choice. I’m not an animal hater by any means, but let’s consider some things. A few people suggested glue traps to me. Not a bad idea, but then I’d have to deal with a live and scared mouse. Apparently, you either have to drown them once they’re caught (I can’t imagine having to do that) or someone said you can pour vegetable oil on them and it frees them from the glue. Not sure about that, plus I still have to pick them up and bring them somewhere to do that. And I heard from more than one person that sometimes the mouse is so upset to be caught that it actually tears itself in half. So no, I’m not getting glue traps.
Someone else suggested another kind of humane trap that simply catches the mouse. But again, I’d have to release it. I would love to say I’m brave enough to handle a live mouse in a trap (and if I absolutely had to, maybe I could), but the truth is, I’m not. I don’t scream over spiders (maybe the really really big hairy ones) and I don’t worry about flies or bugs. But rodents? I just can’t make myself go near them. Plus, I kept thinking that rodents carry disease, and I’d rather not take the risk. So yes, I went with the D-con.
When I got home, I put on my lovely rubber gloves with ruffles (a gift from a friend), got out the soft scrub with bleach and cleaned out the cabinet (no worries, I also threw out the sponge as soon as I was done with it). I got rid of almost everything in there – anything paper or cardboard was gone. I saved only the garbage bags, and got rid of their box. I found new homes for some of the clean items coming out of the dishwasher and used the clean tupperware to house my cookie cutters, which had been in a box. I threw out extra tupperware because I wasn’t sure I could make myself put food in there again, even if it was clean. I used the Clorox wipes to wipe down the bottles of olive oil and vinegar that had been stored in there, and put everything in the plastic containers once it was clean. Ahh. I didn’t put anything on the top shelf except D-con and another supply of it near where I think they’re coming in. Another friend suggested figuring out where they come in and sealing it off. It seems that they never sealed up the cabinet next to the dishwasher, and that looks to be the only entrypoint. Blech. I do plan to look to seal that up, perhaps with some spray insulation, but that’s a project for another day.
Since the big clean out, I’ve noticed only one mouse dropping. When using D-con, there is the possibility that the mouse will eat the “food” and die in the walls of the house, which leads to a fairly distinct and nasty smell – it has happened at my parents’. However, I was willing to take the chance, and so far I haven’t noticed anything. I suspect that could be because we had a few warmer days right afterwards, so the mice may have gone back outside again. I’m really hoping this is my last bout with mice!
