(Common field mouse photo courtesy ofhttp://www.nps.gov/york/naturescience/mammals.htm)
If it wasn’t bad enough that I’d been stricken with The Dreaded Stomach Flu, a mouse had the nerve to get inside the house and die somewhere in my bedroom.
We’ve been through his before. Living in a house built in 1830 means that a mouse barely has to inhale in order to squeeze through the structure’s assorted gaps and crevices. Apparently construction in the 1800s wasn’t nearly as precise as it is today. This must be what the real estate agent meant when she referred to the house as “charming.”
Even though we have sealed up every crack and crevice that we can find, the mice still get in. As soon as the first frost hits, the furry little squatters attempt to take up residence inside our home.
We never see them. They must spend their time doing whatever it is that mice do downstairs in our mud-walled basement. The only evidence of our rodent roommates is the occasional sound of something making scratching sounds inside the walls.
Even though mice skeeve me out, I can’t handle the idea of a traditional mousetrap. Besides, with the kids and our dog Shelby (“Madame Cujo” to her friends), a trap would be downright dangerous. Our solution is to pay for a pest control company to come out in the Fall and set bait traps along the perimeter of the house. The flaw to this plan is that the mice have a tendency to eat the bait outside and then die inside.
So there I was, sick in bed with a raging fever, the room spinning if I made the slightest attempt at getting up. Over the din of all of this raging and spinning in my head, I heard some scritch--scritching along the metal baseboard heater on the other side of the room. Any other time, I would have gotten up to investigate, but on this particular day, nothing was going to get my sick and sorry ass out of that bed.
A few days later, after I’d recovered, my husband and I noticed a peculiar odor each time we’d enter the bedroom. Unfortunately, it was something we’d smelled before. It was the unmistakable scent of a dead rodent and it was somewhere in our bedroom.
The last time we smelled this same putrid odor, my husband and I checked everywhere to find the dead little bastard. We sniffed to narrow down the general location of its demise. We cleared out closets, we moved furniture, and we emptied cabinets. He removed ceiling lights and door trims. The source of the stench could not be found as it was evidently inside one of the walls. A dead mouse inside plaster walls means that we’re never going to be able to get to it. We certainly could not tear down assorted walls in our home. All that work – and sniffing - for nothing.
While it’s a disgusting thought, especially if you live in the city and have never had to deal with a dead rodent in your walls, the fact of the matter is that dead mice decompose relatively quickly. The awful smell dissipates and then is gone altogether within about three weeks. It’s a long three weeks, but still, it passes.
Once, after we’d gotten home from vacation, we smelled eau d’Deceased Rodent in my son’s room. We were unable to pinpoint the source of the smell. We moved his toys. We rearranged furniture. We checked the light fixture and wall switch cover. Eventually we were shocked to discover that a flying squirrel had died inside his closet on top of his sleeping bag (note to self: check closet first next time.)
We made the best of the discovery and turned it into an educational experience for the kids. After all, how many times do you get to see a flying squirrel up close, dead or alive? That’s the sort of thing you do when you live in the country and are surrounded by critters of every kind whether you want to be or not.
(flying squirrel - photo courtesy ofhttp://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/enlarge/flying-squirrel_image.html)
Back to my bedroom mouse problem. The eau d’Deceased Rodent smell was most noticeable as soon as we’d enter the room, but fortunately couldn’t be smelled where our bed was located thanks to the air purifier on the nightstand.
We’d been tolerating the fetid smell for over a week. The other day, as I was carrying a heavy clothes basket into my bedroom, Shelby ran inside with me. I don’t usually allow her in my bedroom because she furtively steals tissues and Q-tips from my wastebasket and eats them. Evidently paper products are a delicacy for Schnauzers.
In spite of this unexpected freedom, Shelby ignored the wastebasket and made a beeline to the baseboard heater on the other side of the room; the same place I’d heard the scritch-scritching over a week ago. In true Madame Cujo fashion, she went nuts. She barked, she pawed at the metal baseboard, she ran around in circles wildly trying to get my attention. (“What’s that, Lassie? Timmy’s fallen in a well?”) She barked as if to say, “I found something stinky and dead. Aren’t you going to do something?”
I moved her out of the way and got down on my hands and knees to investigate before becoming totally paralyzed by the “eww” factor of what I needed to do. Please let there not be a dead mouse there, please let there not be a dead mouse there...
Sure enough, Shelby had found the source of the stink: a dead mouse underneath the baseboard heater. (note to self: check the place where you hear the scritch-scritching first.) I took a plastic bag out of the wastebasket and retrieved the stiff little vermin from the baseboard while trying desperately to neither breathe nor lose my lunch in the process.
Shelby was so pleased with herself. She knew she’d done a good thing. She jumped up on me excitedly and accompanied me down the stairs and out to the trash can to dispose of her find. She held her head and ears proudly and pranced like a show horse at my side. I think I even saw her smile.
I wonder if she knows that in addition to being the winner of the “Find the Dead Mouse” game, she’s also been officially promoted to Deceased Rodent Finder.
Comments
Mary - Ugh! Mice will get into smallest places, including refrigerator coils. I hope the new fridge solved the problem.
JK - It's such a common problem in the country, and it seems that no single method is right for controlling them. I thought we should stop baiting them, but then I read that they have babies every 21 days. A house would be overrun in no time if nothing was done to get rid of them. Thanks for the solidarity!
odette - That stomach flu was brutal this year, wasn't it? I hope that everyone is healthy now in your house.
Mrs. Michaels - OK, you win! Trying to catch a live one is much worse than looking for a dead one. Why do cats bring the live ones home? I guess they want to share the love with you.
Jimmy - Thank you! I appreciate the compliment even more coming from such an accomplished writer as yourself. :)
Thumbed. Glad to see you're over the stomach flu - OY! that can be horrible!
Bill - Aw, yes. You understand completely! I complained about the mice to the pest control technician once and he said that everyone out here goes through this. You either have mice or you have rats. I guess I'm thankful I have the mice. Now if they'd just go die outside...
It is not shameful to HAVE cockroaches, only to KEEP them.
I think the same thing is true in more rural areas regarding mice. :-D
Michael - I'll bet you could share plenty of stories about Palmetto bugs. When I was camping in Florida once, I went to the bathhouse to take a shower. I got completely undressed, turned on the water, and then saw the largest, most disgusting bug I've ever seen. I later learned it was a Palmetto bug. It cured my thoughts of wanting to live in Florida.
I think I can one up you this time. Last winter we developed a hole into our attic due to rotting trim around the eaves. Hole right next to the chimney lining. And into this hole climbed (husband saw with a flashlight at various times) an entire family of raccoons, at least two squirrels, and a possum. There's nothing in the attic we particularly care about, so we listened to the racket and swore to do something about it come warm weather.
Only problem - possums are clumsy. And this one, on one of his excursions to and from the house, apparently slipped, fell down inside the chimney between the stone and the chimney liner, konked his little head, and died. Not before crawling up UNDER the fireplace, between the fireplace and the fireplace slab.
This happened during a brief warm spell; it rained once or twice. Then a cold snap. Great day for a fire. Oh merciful heavens. You have not smelled anything until you have smelled a large, decomposing, soggy possum in its very own steamer.
The fireplace is pretty much the center of the house; we ended up staying with my parents for two days, until the contractor could get out there. He had to pull the entire side of the chimney off and crawl up under it. He's an experienced dude and pretty much immune to fearsome stench, but his son was sitting in the truck looking green when we came by to pay them. Husband, being a boy, had to go and examine the dead possum once it was removed. He says it looked sort of mummified, hair charred off.
Weirdly enough, though we once had a snake, we've never had mice. My parents, who live on a farm, get mice though. They don't have a problem finding them since their cat is a weirdo. Cat catches the mice and drowns them in his water dish. Eeewww!
You should call a farm and feed store or an exterminator and ask them about these little blue block things ( I don't know the name)they put in a black boxes. They are little blue blocks about maybe 2" and are placed in a black box that are about 5 0r6". You can put them in the cabinets and even throw the blocks themselves under you house in the crawl spaces. The nice thing about these are that you don't have smell of a dead mouse, or the gross mouse trap to deal with, and your kids and animals can't get into the boxes, well kids only if they aren't in higher cabinets. The mice eat them and then go die somewhere and you don't have to deal with the dead mice or the smell.
My son-in-law's family owns a exterminating business and this is what they use. He put some all over the old farm house I lived in and after that I never had another mouse to deal with.
Thank you for this interesting post.
We had one particularly helpful outdoor cat who used to bring half-dead rodents INTO the house to die under the fridge. The gift that keeps on giving.
Did you know that schanuzers were originally bred as mousers? Evidently Shelby knew this.
Spud - My posts always feel complete when you show up to comment. Thank you so much!
fireeyes - You mean those boxes that look like a videocassette? We actually used to have them, but then the exterminator replaced them with disposable glue boards. One time, Shelby ate one and glued her mouth completely shut! Maybe it's time to look into the black boxes again.
Faith - Bwahaha! "The gift that keeps on giving!" I love that. Regarding schnauzers as mousers, I'd heard that, but none of my other schnauzers ever actually proved it to me. Well, except for my schnauzer, Schultz, who actually caught a mouse.
We get mice just about every winter because we live by a soy bean field. Once the field is plowed under the mice come to their winter home. Never get the sticky pads though. Once I made that mistake. The rat terrier though it was her personal snack tray and got her chin and paw stuck as she was trying to de-stick a dead mouse. Another time, one didn't die quick enough and so my husband and I were jolted from sleep by a mouse squeaking in agony.
Very amusing tale, OF COURSE, but I 'm going to get all serious on you here and implore you not to use poison anymore. Mice who have been poisoned with warfarin (by far the most commonly used rodent bait) become voraciously thirsty and flush out of their hiding places in search of water. Other forms of wildlife -- owls, larger mammals -- then catch them and also die. We lost a whole family of barn owls when my neighbors (not Don and Spirit) put out Decon. Good old fashioned Victor traps work better, anyway. (I've got LOTS of rodent experience, including $8,000 damage when rats chewed the entire wiring system of my Mini.) Also steel wool in crevices, particularly around places where pipes come in, seems to keep the little critters away.
Anyway, sorry for the depressing lecture on pesticides in the midst of all this lighthearted enjoyment. That's what happens when you live in Organic Utopia. I know rodents in the house are no fun. But you sure are, so I hope you're not mad.
Did you ever read the book, "Please Don't Eat the Daisies," by Jean Kerr? Your writing reminds me so of hers. Another winner.
Jess - Yes! That's what happened to Shelby. She chewed a glue board and promptly glued her mouth shut. Schnauzers have a "beard" and hers was all caught in the sticky glue to the point where she could NOT open her mouth. By the time we were done cutting away the glue and the hair, she was nearly hairless on her face!
Laurel - I try to be environmentally minded but I'm embarrassed to say that I hadn't considered the possibility of the mice going outside to look for water and then being eaten by birds of prey. I just never thought of it (I thought they only died in my walls!) That is certainly a cause for concern. I will find out what our alternatives are. I wouldn't want to do anything to harm birds or the other wildlife that feed on the mice. Thanks for the info!
Lea - We've had skunks before and they are by far the worst. I'm always fearful that they're going to spray the dog.
Thanks for the compliment on my writing. I haven't read the book you mentioned but I will now. :)
1. Don't use the glue boards. Those things are just fucking cruel. I'm not a PETA person, but I'm not about to let one slowly starve to death or be flayed alive trying to escape.
2. I'd avoid the poison. If a mouse eats the poison, and Madame Cujo eats the mouse...
3. For efficiency and humanity, your best bets are either the old-fashioned snap traps baited with peanut butter, or, if Madame Cujo's safety is a worry, the live-capture traps also baited with peanut butter (CritterCube I think is the brand name of the best ones, they're like a buck a piece at Wal-Mart). If you use the live capture ones, you can either release the mice far, far away from your house or kill them swiftly yourself. (Without going into too many details, a Wal-Mart sack and a big rock works nicely. Wear heavy work gloves to avoid being bitten.)
Ewww! on the dead squirrel.
I'm glad you're feeling better. And I like the new avatar!
David - Your comment about the "learnin' really starts' once you leave home" had me cracking up. I can just imagine all of you pondering the fate of that poor stuck mouse. Ah, the things we do when we're young!
Susanne - I'd get a cat in a heartbeat except my husband isn't a cat person and I don't know how Madame Cujo would be with one. I'd think that a house with a cat in it would have less mice than a house without one.
LandP - Oh yes, our basement is a story of its own. It's only 5 feet high so you have to duck while down there or you hit your head constantly. Last weekend our heater needed repair. I kept hearing "wonk" then tons of swearing from my husband as he kept hitting his head! We dug a french drain so it no longer floods but when we first moved in, there was ALWAYS water down there. It's still a creepy basement so we try to avoid it. Your house sounds like you had your very own animal menagerie, but not in a good way.
Jacey - If I didn't live in such a beautiful area in a community with such nice people, I'd probably move to a high rise condo where I wouldn't have to deal with these critters. I like where I live so I put up with it, although the days when there's NOT a dead mouse in the wall are much easier than the days when there IS one. Thanks for the compliment on my avatar. :)
The only thing worse than dead, decaying mouse smell is dead, decaying litter of baby opossum smell ... under my classroom one year ... had to evac entire wing until someone could come ... GHASTLY!!!
And this ~ my parents paid almost 3K to have their papillion's intestines unstuck of toilet paper once ... he loved to eat the stuff ... wtf???
and this ... how the heck did a flying squirrell get into your house??? fly??? lol ;0
Our house is 108 years old, a mere piker compared to yours. But if it is any comfort the carpenters then were equally unconcerned with the sieve like quality of our walls and such. We have plugged up the obvious ones but the others are, as you say, part of the "Charm."
We have quite a few mice who come in when it starts to freeze outside. They don't have a chance. Just ask Jake and Allie and Gracie, children all of the champion feral momma cat in all of Newcomerstown. Now all three are house cats and a mouse is a great treat, a plaything, but most of all, LUNCH!!
So are bugs of all descriptions. All the cats were outside as small kitties, the girls for about 8 months and Jake for about 3 months. So while we fed them out at our shed, they are all good hunters. They look forward to the fall invasion with great glee.
Monte
ewwwwwwww!
love love love
Laurel - So does that mean I'm safe with the bait they're currently putting down?
Cat - Too funny! So what kind of tea would you recommend to go along with eau d'Deceased Rodent?
Monte - It sounds like you have professional hunters! No wonder the mice aren't a problem at your house. We used to have a large feral cat population around here but I think they've all been captured and neutered. I haven't seen any in a long time.
marcelle - Yes! Rotten potato smell is very similar.
Teddy - Thank you so much for the kind words! You're too sweet. I appreciate you stopping by. I hope that you are feeling better today. :)
Monte
and I doubt you would wish that on them. At least with a trap it's over quickly.
I have had a mild case of the flu and geez, even thinking about how that rotten little piece of mouseflesh smelled....Its a real problem and to think how cute they are before they start to rot!!!!!
My mother would go into a full out war on mice every year. We were the ones who suffered. She loved those little traps that smooshed their heads... I think she enjoyed their pain. Evil, I tell you. I always took up for the mice until now I have the mouse war for myself...lol.
Funny stuff.
Hyblaean - Yes, the, um, aroma certainly added to the overall stomach flu experience!
Cat - Why does every event in my life call for Iron Goddess of Mercy tea? I think I need a vacation. I'll come visit. I can stay in that car of yours.
Laurel - Our house is an old PA farmhouse that used to be the headquarters of the town's sewing guild meetings. There used to be a black smith shop where our garage is. We've found lots of artifacts from digging in the garden, etc., including an old blacksmith hammer (which my husband decided to paint for me as a surprise to make it look "new." I know he meant well, but I could have killed him.) Our house is currently stucco (which I hate) because of an owner in the 80's. If the economy ever recovers, and our personal recession ends, we want to remove the stucco and have the stone restored, at least on the front of it. If you ever decide to move back to New Hope, you've got to let me know. Then we can mind-meld our writing over a much shorter distance.
Monte - You have such a kind heart! And evidently your wife does as well. The world needs more people like you.
Dakini - Yes, I know. I don't know if you read the other comments or not, but we've been discussing alternatives to the bait. I don't want to harm the other birds and animals! I wouldn't want to harm the mice either, if they'd stay OUTSIDE.
Gayle - Adulthood stinks, doesn't? Paying bills and controlling the mouse population. Thank you so much for stopping by!
Nada - Now that's an ewwww! In the inside of the microwave? And three of them? Yikes!
Pamela - We do need a cat. Unfortunately, my chances of convincing hubby that we need one are less likely than convincing him to allow to me to get another husband.
Jane - Yes - How on earth can something so small stink so bad? I can only imagine what Allie's and 1IM's oppossums smelled like.
Dustbowldiva - Yes, I'm going to let Shelby in the bedroom more often now. She's earned it. I will have to take care to pick up the wastebaskets so she doesn't eat the tissues. I don't want a $3,000 vet bill like 1IM's parents had for their Papillon!
Thank you ALL so much for taking time to read and comment on my smelly story. I appreciate it.
Here's my side of the story from back in the beta days... Cat and Mouse Olympics. I think you'll enjoy the, hmm, irony.
Umbrella - I'm sorry to hear The Dreaded Stomach Flu found you, too. I hope you're feeling better. I think it's FINALLY done circulating through my house.
Sally - I have not heard of Stuffit. What on earth is that? I'm heading over now to check out your Cat and Mouse story.
rated
I once spent the night at a friend's house and was tossing and turning for hours to the smell of dead mouse.
I didn't want to be inhospitable, but man! Finally, I got up and checked under the bed. Tiny little dead one with much stink.
If you haven't read this yet, Haven Kimmel writes of her family's mouse infested house in "She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana."
Rated
Thanks for the Haven Kimmel recommendation. She's one of my favorite authors. I'm bummed that she's written something that I've missed.
--Lulu the OBB
I have a squirrel in my attic. Been there (or its descendents) for years. Ignores the (live) trap. Wildlife-removal person said it would cost $300 to get rid of it - and another would move right in, because with an old log house, with additions, there was no way to prevent it. I'm still hoping that next spring the live trap may work.
Someone told me this morning that she had a squirrel in the house proper. She set out a rat trap. Woke in the middle of the night to a racket. Found a pathetic dying squirrel - tossed it and trap outside into the snow. (If I'd done that, I wouldn't tell anyone.)
Because I have cats, I have cat doors. Not-full-grown raccoons can get thru...and, using their little hands, open drawers and cupboards...and run around the house and poop on beds...
Once a skunk got in (I think I'll write that up as a post).
Used to have porcupines come and chew at my house - they like plywood. (I built a surround-porch, which has solved that problem.)
And, of course, I'm overrun by deer - but they haven't got into the house yet.
A friend - now this is classy! - had an ermine get into her house. That is, a mink turned white for the winter.
Now I feel like a weenie whining about a little dead mouse. :)
the 'we' is editorial. tho' i'm in charge of mice found in the house, live or dead, i happened to be out and about when he found and had to remove the possum.
since then, i've had to rescue a baby mole and a mouse, both live, from the pool. keeps them from getting in the house, perhaps? tho' with four cats, that would probably not be too much of a problem.
eridanis - Drowned vermin? In your pool? Eek! I feel for you having "rodent duty" in those circumstances. I can't imagine the smell of a dead, drowned, bleached possum that's been in a covered pool for awhile.
Sally Swift:
For many years we were free of mice. They tried to develop the woods my house walks out into on the south into a Shopping Center, A familiar problem which would have eliminated 14 acres of woods, ponds, a stream and all the wildlife that comes with it; deer, swans, Egret, Coyotes, chanting frogs, cardinals and more along with a rich variety of bird life, some of which I'd never seen before moving here (far western Illinois). The sealing of those acres would cause our flood plain to rise. We beat them back, so they started developing south of south of us, now we have mice, they chased them out of the woods.
We went on an inch by inch campaign to get rid of them and their associated problems, poops, pees, dead mouse smell and mating like bunnies. At first we did not want to kill them, so we got the safety traps. The mice had them ll figured out with ease. They would steal the Peanut butter and snap the traps, but never get caught. So we used real traps, bleach vacuuming, sealing and best of all chicken wire and plywood and concrete to seal them out, Gobs of Steel wool especially designed for mouse elimination. It is GREAT!
Good story, Ms Lisa, hooray for your Puppydog!