There's a Mouse in the House.

It's 4am.  There's a mouse in the house and our cleaner is on holiday. Are the two related, I wonder?

The little bugger thing keeps waking me up.  Scratch, scratch, nibble, nibble, pause.  There are humane traps waiting.  They're baited with peanut butter.  I'm waiting.  With baited breath.

Irritated, I've got no intention of getting up until the morning.  Sleep is in short supply around here.   Catch the little bugger thing I'm  thinking.  Catch it.

He hasn't been for two nights but if one more person / thing in this house wakes me up I'm going to scream.  That will get all of the other buggers them back for the frequency with which every one of them feels inclined to disturb my slumber.  I'm really not in the mood.

Silence.

Scratch, scratch, nibble, nibble, pause.

And pause.

More scratching.

Nothing.

He's trapped, I think. Got the little bugger thing.  Good.

More silence.

Definitely got him.

Snooze.

5am. The three year old comes in. A bad dream about monsters shooting him.

Crikey. We really must cut down on the Nerf gun play.

But I can't scream at him, because he's gorgeous, he doesn't do it all that often and he's only three..

The seven year old has already been in B.M. (Before Mouse).  Bad dreams about a man offering him sweets.

Crikey.  We really must cut down on the Stranger Danger.

I didn't scream at him either because it was before S.L.R. (Screaming Level Reached).

Snooze.

Phone Alarm.

Hell. I'm in exactly the right mood to deal with an incarcerated mouse now. Out. Of. My. Way.

The trap is closed.  Good.  We'll dump him by the horses on the way to school.  It's got to be over a  mile away from the house apparently, 'or it will come back.'   Is it mad?  A mad mouse?  Typical.

The boys, also like they're deranged, are excitedly using a pencil to punch holes in shoe boxes for it.  That was the eldest's idea and he proudly holds the trap aloft, even though I've told him not to touch it in case the little bugger thing escapes.

He exclaims 'He's weightless.'

I think, 'Where did he get that word from?'

He steps forward for me to feel.

I might, quite possibly, have, sort of, screamed then.

Crikey, must cut down on the no sleeping.

Bad dreams, I'm thinking. I haven't hoovered their room.  I always get bad dreams If I don't change the bed exactly weekly, so, yes, I must clean their room. It must be related.  Stuck energy and all that.  Not to mention the mess. We always tidy up before the cleaner comes.  He hasn't been for twelve days.  And it shows.

But I digress, these are the pics of the traps as we set them.

Peanut butter.

in the trap.

Ready and waiting mode.

This is what it looks like before and after.  Do you see how the weight of the mouse tips it downwards where the nice smelly supper is, so that the door automatically closes and he can't get out?  Foolproof, you'd think.  Kind and, yes, humane.

Ta-dah!

So how come when we went to free him in a field he wasn't there?

Which means he is still loose, although the peanut butter has gone!

Is it related to my bad housekeeping, even though there's never, ever any food upstairs, I still wonder?

I tell you something, he's not safe if he makes an appearance while I've got that vacuum cleaner out.  I can guarantee he and housework will be intimately related then.

If you hear a scream from the realms of East Sussex in the middle of the night, from an exhausted and overwrought mother, there's still a mouse in the house.

But I'll get the little bugger thing.




[I'm linking this up with Mummy Barrow's Ranty Friday linky.].