Mouse in the House

There’s a mouse in the house, as my son’s book goes. But in this fiction, the mouse is eventually welcome. The one taken up residence in my abode, is not.
 

I first became aware of my new ‘roomie’ a couple of weeks ago when, one night, I heard what sounded like something crawling over a piece of furniture in my bedroom, followed by the gentle thud as it landed on the floor - I no longer have cats.
 

However, out of sight, out of mind and it was easier to feign ignorance… until a week later at 4am when I came face-to-face with my miniscule dweller in the ensuite. I actually had to give way while it skidded out from behind the washing basket and into my room. Needless to say, I didn’t go back to sleep that morning.
 

It probably sounds utterly ridiculous to some that a person can be afraid of something so tiny. After-all they are supposedly more scared of us than we are of them right? I beg to differ.
 

It’s hard to describe the type of fear a rodent can invoke. It’s obviously not the ‘fear for your life’ terror, it’s just a creepy-crawlie angst. I will not set a trap because, heck, then I’ve got to deal with it – they are just as repulsive dead as they are alive. 
 

Discovering a tail hanging out of my slipper last winter didn’t help. They were promptly turfed in the rubbish (after the rodent had vacated of course). As a result, I cannot don a pair of slippers without checking them first.Last winter it was rodent-central, courtesy of our two cats. I had thought they were bringing them in the house when they delivered them to me in bed – both dead and alive and some more intact than others. But, in light of the latest inhabitant, I wonder if my cats were actually just doing their job.
 

This all sounds very peaceful the way I’m re-telling it but, believe me, it wasn’t: More like, screaming murder and cursing the innocent-looking moggies and simultaneously dry-retching into my pajama top while holding a bucket at arm’s length to try and catch it. All this in the dead of the night. Often the mouse, if it were alive, would run straight into the bucket, relieved to get away from the cat, after which I’d carry it, still at arm’s length and at great speed, downstairs and fling the whole bucket out the garage door. I’d need a sleeping pill after that.
 

I came home to a smashed window some weeks ago from an attempted burglary and, despite amping up my security, spent many nights thereafter on high-alert. So it is, therefore, amazing, that this little creature can have the same effect on one’s quality of life.

Reading last week of the Auckland boy whose ear was bitten by a rat as he slept didn’t help either.

 

Unfortunately the kids have picked up on my fear. It would probably never have occurred to them to be scared but, after the latest sighting, Master Nine screamed like a banshee as it scuttled under the fridge. We promptly went about barricading it in with logs of wood. But what next?
 

“Perhaps we could keep passing bits of cheese under the fridge until it gets so fat it can’t fit out,” he suggested.
 

The jury’s still out on that one. Anyway, I think I heard a thud later that night as it hit the kitchen floor and made a run for it after climbing over the wood.
 

Meanwhile, our fridge is still boarded up, just in case.