Humans 1, Rodents 0

I killed a mouse tonight. Not quite with my bare hands, but close.

So we’ve had a mouse running around the apartment for about a month. He’s bold enough to even come running out when we’re sitting on the couch or walking around– he doesn’t wait until we go to bed. These close encounters infuriated us to the point where we just wanted him gone, preferably dead.

So, we took all the measures possible– put put out tons of traps, we had our landlord fill all the cracks and holes we could find and made sure all of our food was packed away tightly.

Earlier this evening, my roommate Roseanna walked out of her room and saw the mouse run under one of our couches. As soon as I heard her yell, I knew what it was and sprung into action. We’ve gotten used to jumping up and trying to trap the mouse (see prior evidence on Flickr).

I’m not sure why we thought we could chase the mouse down and catch it, but we really did. I think it may have been a combination of two factors: (1) we always saw the little bastard running around and (2) Jen (another roommate) had heard a story about someone chasing down, cornering and trapping a mouse.

Anyway, based on Roseanna’s shout, Will (another roommate) and I sprung into action to trap the mouse in the living room by closing off all the exits. We were able to do this quickly (we have practice, remember).

Still, the little bastard had hiding spots– the two couches and the TV.

So, I’m thinking, if we can get rid of the hiding spots, we might just be able to catch him. As long as he has good hiding spots we’re hopeless. Oh, and we’re pissed off, so we’re not giving up easily.

So, we begin to eliminate his hiding spots. We can’t easily take the couches out of the roommate (the doors are blocked off, remember?), so I decide to just tip them up on their ends, which gives us more open space and eliminates all that hiding space.

Then move the TV out from the wall, so he can’t hid behind there.

Next comes the fun part. Without hiding spaces the cute little bastard doesn’t know what to do. He runs around (with us chasing), running into the barricades we have set up to keep him in the room. He even tries jumping over the barricades, but is unable.

Let me take a moment here to explain something. Setting up barricades to keep a mouse in particular place is not easy. The main problem being that they only need about 1/4 of an inch to slip through– a fact we’ve learned the hard way. In order to seal our barricades off, we resorted to using tape to seal them to the wall and mouse traps to guard other gaps.

Back to the chase…

So, we’re chasing the mouse around the room, Will with a plastic tub and me with the lid. The plan is to corner the mouse, trap him in the plastic tub, slide the lid under to seal him in. Seams reasonable, right? I thought it was the best plan available and far better to waiting for him to get caught in a trap.

Eventually, after about ten minutes, the mouse tries to run past me, I try to stop him and shoo him back to Will to trap, but I hit the mouse on the head with the lid.

The cute little bastard just falls on the carpet and dies.

It was anticlimactic– after a month of terror, a half hour of work and ten minutes of running around in circles in our newly arranged living room, the mouse is dead.

Humans 1, Rodents 0.

I have no remorse.

Evidence on flickr: previous attempt, mess from moving stuff out of the living room, the setup, Will inspecting the corpse, Will again, Kitchen barricade.

7 Responses to “Humans 1, Rodents 0”

  1. Andy Smith Says:

    fuck yeah. Amsterdam has mouse problems apparently. Recently while using my laptop in bed in the middle of the night, a little mouse crawled on to my keyboard. I threw it off and then tried to catch it in a plastic bag, but plastic bags are soft enough that the little fucker can get a grip, so I eventually just swatted it out of the room and closed the door. I haven’t seen it since, but I know it is out there… somewhere…

  2. irina slutsky Says:

    but if you had put it in the tub, would you have driven it somewhere far away and let it go? i guess that’s what i would have done.

  3. ryan Says:

    Yeah, irina, that was the plan.

  4. Lachlan Hunt Says:

    Well done, catching mice is quite a challenge. What’s happened with the photo of the previous attempt, where the person in the UCLA top is semi-transparent? Have you got a problem with ghosts too, or is it some kind of trick photography?

  5. ryan Says:

    lachlan-

    My camera does this weird thing where it flashes multiple times (to eliminate red-eye), but exposes the photo the entire time. Its great for party portraits, but can cause problems if people move.

    -ryan

  6. Aaron Says:

    Congratulations. I’m surprised the little bastard made it a month.

  7. kristin Says:

    you know it has friends, right?