It’s useful to have some backup skills if you ever want a career change. Mine is mouse catcher. In the last month, I’ve caught 5 mice. And I mean caught. No poison, no traps. I channel my inner cat, sneak up on then, and catch them in a bucket (usually by herding them inside).
Don’t try this is the middle of the night. I’ve avoided sleeping in the lounge next to the fireplace for a while, as I hear them in the kitchen, can’t sleep, eventually furiously barge into the kitchen at about 4am, channeling not my inner cat, but my inner buffalo. The mice escape, I try to go back to bed. Repeat. And the next day I’m a sleep-deprived wreck.
No, you need to stalk them fresh and alert, usually first thing in the morning, or late evening.
I release them in a field. Not the field across the road, as I first did. Apparently mice can find their way back for more than a kilometre. So I take them for a little drive.
Mouse number five proved challenging. After catching it as easily as the others, I had it in a bucket with a book on top. I heard it desperately leaping up, as the others had done, but left it alone as I wasn’t quite ready for the drive.
I returned to find the mouse gone. The tiniest of mice had leaped many times it height, and squeezed out the tiniest of holes I’d left for air. And mice learn fast. Back the next night, now it proved much tougher to catch. The slightest breath as I stalked it and it was gone. Once or twice I had it cornered but it knew to avoid the bucket at all costs.
I heard it again. After catching four mice I thought I had them all and had scrubbed the shelves. The next day they looked like a student’s party pad again. Although I’ve never met a student that shits everywhere. And gnaws holes in the hemp. Mice love hemp. If there’s no hemp seeds, they go for the hemp powder. If there’s no hemp powder they’ll go for the chia meal. Then the chia seeds. Then they start getting desperate and go for the lucuma. The only thing that’s safe is the cacao. They will even eat cardboard rather than cacao.
With the precious hemp safely squeezed into the fridge, and the cacao of no interest, the mouse was in the shelf with my drill, screws, light bulbs. Chewing the cardboard box around the drill. I had the bucket ready, sneaked up, blocked the exits. Threw open the door. And the mouse was gone in a flash, hidden before I could see where it went. I started unpacking furiously, bucket ready for a sudden escape. Light bulbs, extension cords, screws, screwdrivers. No sign of the mouse. It could only be in place. I peeked into the drill box. And there it was. I had to move fast – the box wasn’t that secure, with all the chewing the mouse had been up to.
Mouse shit everywhere. Pasta packets strewn open. The temptation to switch the drill on didn’t even cross my mind…
If driving while texting, or having sex, is dangerous, it doesn’t come close to driving while trying to keep in a mouse in a drill box with many holes. The thought of it chewing through the car didn’t appeal, so the mouse was not escaping again. Luckily it was late at night, and the slightly wobbly driving didn’t cause any accidents. The mouse raced off into the field, hopefully to meet up with the rest of the little hooligans.
It’s been two days. I may even sleep in the lounge tonight. The cupboards are half scrubbed, though I doubt I’d pass any kitchen health inspections. Hopefully that’s the end of them…
