Building a Better Mouse Trap

As much as I wouldn't want to admit it, I'm more than certain that there's a mouse living in the house.

First of all, there are the little nibblings I witness when I left a bag of cookies or peanuts in a ziplock bag. I think I'm in denial when I tell myself the wear and tear of transporting the bag made it so, but I should know better.

And there's that little rustlings I hear when it's really quiet and I'm in the kitchen, or worse, in my room. I'd think that with the pile of filth in which I live, it's just a matter of plastic and things settling and moving in my room.

Icing on the cake was yesterday (Sunday, I started this entry Monday night) when I was in my room, and I happened to glance towards the kitchen and my doorway and see some silhouette scurry across across. It was quick and small and very mouse shaped-like.

So I casually mention it to my roommate. She either didn't hear me, or she decided to pretend not to hear me.

I come home today to an empty house. remembering that my roommate didn't go to work today, she was undoubtedly out and about somewhere. Not long after I got home, and I was already washing dishes, she was back, and in her hand was a bag from the 99 Cents Only store, and she approached me at the sink as she dug around the bag for something.

She bought me not one, but two different types of mouse traps. They were the sticky sort, something like mouse paper.

After I finished the dishes, I held both packets and read the wrappers carefully, and even examined the Spanish side as if I could parse more information from that side. I fixated on the part that mentioned the trap is disposable with the mouse.

That's the part that me very sad...because that meant, the mouse gets disposed of too. Does it really have to get to that point? How could I just get a little critter stuck in icky sticky paper, and just throw it away in my trash? And then what happens after that? The little mouse sticks to the paper like that until it dies?

On top of that, how could I set up the trap? Should I put it somewhere in my room, evne though I don't know what path it regularly takes? I saw it dash across my doorway but I can't very well just put a mat of sticky paper, because we have an African desert tortoise that likes walking around, and if he were to get stuck to the stuff, what then? How upsetting will that be for my roommate?


What I was really planning on doing is what we did when there was a mouse when I was still living with my parents. We noticed that there were little nibblings here and there, in my sister's room and in the kitchen. Then we started noticing moving silhouettes dashing from one place to another. We then named our "pet" mouse Pinkywinky, and soon enough, my sister and I actually saw the thing, and as if it was required of the female kind, we erupted in a chorus of squeals as soon as it dashed in our direction.

My dad set up several mouse traps. These traps were made using a shoebox, a bit of thin, cotton thread, and some bait like a peanut or some grain. The bait is tied around the thread, then is tied around the lid with the bait suspended in the middle of the lid. The lid, top side down, is placed on the floor, and the actual box part of the shoebox is placed over the lid, and is held open by the thread tied around the lid. Here is a visual:


When the mouse comes, it goes in and nibbles on the bait, breaking the thread, and the weight of the box that was being held up by the thread will fall onto and around the mouse. You then have a trapped, live mouse.

There were several traps set up throughout the house, and the one that got Pinkywinky was the one my sister decided to make that was just outside her room. She noticed that the box was closed, and thought the trap failed, but when she picked it up, she heard something slide around inside it. PINKYWINKY!

I sadly wasn't able to go face to face with our "pet." My sister and dad kept it in a cage we had outside, so I could see the scruffy thing, but it made its way out of it by the time I got home. I heard he wasn't as adorable and more scrappy looking.

Not that it should be that difficult, but I think I'll make myself a trap that way. I'm pretty sure that I have a vacant shoebox, and I can ask for thread from my roommate who just bought herself a new sewing machine...I think I can better live with myself that way...

It's too bad I can't make myself one of these:

Then again, I'm not ready to go to The Playa for this endavour.