Felicity, Miscellenia

Of mice and men

A few years ago, just after we got Felicity, while she was still a tiny kitten, our neighborhood had a mouse outbreak.

It started in the camilla hedge a few houses down, and a week later, we had a mouse in our kitchen.

I don't want mice in my house, even if they are wearing cute costumes

Ick.  Eww.

So of course I needed to get rid of it, and Felicity wasn’t big enough to do the job, so we needed a mousetrap.

I didn’t want to use poison because of Felicity and the possibility of the mouse dying in the walls if it worked.

Double ick and eww.

And I didn’t want to use a snap trap because of Felicity and the probability of dead mouse spilling guts and goo if it worked.

Triple ick and eww.

So, what I needed was one of those nifty little box moustraps that traps the mouse alive and lets you release it a couple of miles down the road, thus inflicting it on someone else.

Yippe?

So off I went to the hardware store.  No dice.  Nothing but the ick snap guts and goo ones.

Same story at the garden centre, the sell-everything-made-in-China store, and the other hardware store in my neighborhood.

So after a couple of hours of unsuccessful searching, I got grumpy, went home, and got start and started calling places rather than visiting them in person.

Four stores later, I finally called my local grocery store, and they guy at customer service said “yeah, sure, of course we have live mouse traps”

Yay!  Yipee!

So I popped into the car, and was there in 10 minutes.

I went straight to the hardwares and mousetrap aisle, and looked, and looked, and looked.  Nothing but the  ick snap guts and goo ones.

So…back to the customer service desk, where I explained that I had just called asking about live mousetraps.  They said “Oh, we know exactly who you talked to”, called him over and he said “I’ll show you right where the live mouse traps are”

Back we went to exactly where I had been looking before, and he points at the  ick snap guts and goo ones.

And I say “But those aren’t live mousetraps.  They kill the mouse when they snap down.”

And he says:

(wait for it)

“But the mouse is live when the trap catches it”

13 Comments

  1. If you’re in this situation again, you can put a dab of peanut butter on the end of a painting stir stick and balance it against the ledge of a bucket with the peanut butter end extending beyond the top of the bucket. Mouse goes up for a treat, overbalances the stick and falls into the bucket. You can then carry him Far Away for release.
    I give you this information mostly because Felicity looks as though she would rather starve than touch a mouse, and I can’t say I blame her one bit.

  2. KC says

    But how did you get rid of the mouse?
    Did you have to use that gross trap?

    • Felicity dealt to the mouse two days later. It was amazing and scary because she wasn’t much bigger than it!

      • KC says

        Oh good!

        I thought Felicity looked like a cat that a mouse would look at and run. 😀

  3. jackiead says

    Will Felicity still catch mouses now that she is all grown-up? She looks like she could be a real little huntress. My experience with female cats they make the best little mousers and hunters of other creatures not especially preferred brought home as a gift ( snakes, moles, rabbits & birds).

  4. I know the guy was being cheeky and irritating, but he’s right and it’s funny. heeehee. Go Felicity! Who would have thought such a fluffy lovey kittypoo would be a killing machine.

    We used to have a cat who brought us birds and mice and baby rabbits as some kind of offering. She left them on the foot of my parents’ bed.

  5. What a laugh.I must admit we do the platic snap and eww ones using peanut butter easier to use than the old wodden ones yes I feel bad but hate them being in my house and I get the boys to do the burial ewww.

  6. Maire Smith says

    Should you be in the same situation again this winter, you might want to consider one of those grey plastic ones sold as ‘The Better Mousetrap’. I’ve used them, and they actualy were pretty good. They do kill the mouse, but I’ve never seen one actually break the mouse’s skin, and one doesn’t have to actually touch the dead mouse at any point — just the trap. So there’s very little ‘ick’ factor.

    You would need to find a place for it where the cat’s paws weren’t at risk, though, and of course, it does rather depend on how you feel about killing the mouse.

    • Not sure what ‘The Better Mousetrap’ is, and luckily we haven’t had any indoor mouse problems since Felicity caught that first one, but it’s still good to know of the options out there!

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