Happy New Year, Everyone! I spent the afternoon behind my refrigerator, toweling up poop and bleaching surfaces. I guess it's an apt finish to 2021, but I could have done without 2022 introducing itself with me bagging a corpse and putting it out into the subzero cold.
This past Autumn, when Lisa and I winterized our back porch off the kitchen, we found some droppings in the bin that holds our lanterns and bug spray. There were apparently mice living in the shelter of the porch. We found the storm door wasn't fully sealed, and so I fixed that after a full Clean'n'Bleach of the room. About two weeks later, I was in the kitchen standing at the sink and I saw something scurry from under the kitchen island to under the fridge. It would seem that when I sealed off the porch, there was someone still inside, who then came into the kitchen when outdoor access was cut off.
At this point I was pretty naive, and panic didn't even cross my mind. I bought traps, confident that this would be a minor hiccup in the holiday season, but the traps went neglected. We pulled the fridge out and discovered the extent of infrastructure that a mouse can build when left to his/her own devices. There was very little evidence of anyone living in the kitchen, other than the distinct, hamster-cage odor when we pulled the fridge out of its cubby.
But then I crawled back there and pulled the access panel off the back of the fridge, and I began to comprehend just how heedless I had been to the original evidence of infestation. I found the remains of two towels, disassembled and reimagined into a nest surrounding the nice warm compressor, along with a quarter cup of pilfered kibble from the cat dishes. This mouse meant to hang out for a bit. So we took away the nest. I cleared the area of all fibers and food, and I bleached the bottom of the tray. We re-baited the traps and figured we'd have a dead mouse to dispose of soon.
But then we went out of town for Christmas. We were only gone for three days, but when we got back the kitchen smelled like the old pet shop at Har Mar Mall. I actually got my hopes up - had we caught the thing in one of the traps? I checked, and no. It was still living here, mocking us with its nonchalance. Now dread was starting to take hold, but we all have work and the holidays to deal with, so we let it go until I had a day off. On New Year's Eve we pulled the fridge back out and I again took the panel off, only to find that they were still pooping under there. I spent more time than I'd like to admit cleaning poop again and scrubbing again and bleaching again.
Throughout this ordeal, I feel I need to state that a prominent proprietor of cartoon mouse content, et al., lied to me. I was led throughout my youth to believe that if mice chose to grace my life with their presence, it would be in a benevolent way: tailoring my suits, cleaning my kitchen, helping me solve mysteries... No one ever once implied they would just shit under my refrigerator. That is not helpful to me at all! And so prolifically - this has been a LOT of mouse shit. According to Don Bluth they're always wearing colorful shawls and offering sage advice, but in reality they don't even understand English. And it makes sense, I mean they obviously have to poop somewhere - Rankin & Bass just never zoomed in on their asses when they were dropping pellets all over the clock tower.
Meanwhile, Jebus the cat had really dropped the ball. She had two choices, and she neither chased down and drove out the menace, nor did she strike up an unlikely friendship with it in an adorable way.
So I got a couple more traps. The mean kind. We had the little igloo-shaped spin traps originally, with the tiny door that Mickey goes in, which then slams shut and crushes his head. But those require engagement from the mouse. This time I bought the old-fashioned, tried and true, Snap Shut On Their Necks type of traps. I didn't use the recommended peanut butter as bait - since this prick was just stealing cat food, I piled three kibbles on each trap under the island, took the cat dishes up off of the floor, and went about my holiday evening.
Then, after I went to bed, Lisa was still out in the living room when she heard the snap. She got me up, and had me look under the kitchen island. This fucker was big. No wonder it hadn't gone into the igloo traps - there's no way it would have fit. I even did some research into the difference between mice and rats, but it turns out it was just a VERY LARGE mouse. So big in fact that the mean trap had not snapped shut on its neck, but smashed across its head. When we moved the island to reveal the horror show it still had its face stuck in the trap, but it was most decidedly dead. We dropped it into a bag and put it out into the -12F temps out back.
I am ambivalent about the killing of household pests. I don't like to be personally responsible for the end of living things (except centipedes - fuck those guys), but at the same time they can't live in my house. They shit a LOT, and they carry diseases and they steal kibble from my cat. I do not apologize for crushing this giant mouse's skull, but I still felt a pang dropping it into the bag and putting it out into the cold. And this speaks to the Disney point I raised earlier. I have been conditioned to believe a mouse is an adorable anthropomorphic oaf who just wants to be a sidekick to whatever adventures I am piloting. This is not the case. A mouse is 100% id. It wants to eat and poop, and it absolutely does not want to die. Even when you slam a metal bar across its face it'll take a couple minutes to expire, legs twitching while it respires agonally. Again, no apologies, but mixed feelings nonetheless.
Don't shit under my fridge though.
