Mousetraps are Out, Bags of Pirate's Booty are In

The mice are down one soldier as of Saturday afternoon. He must have gone out looking for food during a rare quiet time during the day. Things don't stay quiet here for very long and he got stuck in the bag of Pirate's Booty on the counter. The cat was nosing around the bag and we saw it wobble back and forth of its own accord.

I grabbed the bag, rolled the top down, sealing him in. A strip of the duct tape and he was locked up.

Paula took him down to the slough for the release part of the equation. Neither of us really wanted to kill the mouse, we just didn't want him and his family taking up residence in our cupboards.

One down, at least one more to go.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. I heard a quiet crunch, crunch, crunch coming from under the toaster during a lull in the football crushing I was undergoing. I peeked and saw a pointy little whiskered face gnawing on a piece of a pretzel rod.

After a short chase, he did end up getting away but I hope I scared him good. The next step will be the escalation of the war against them from live traps to the ones that don't leave them alive. Not something we want to do but we also have no interest in sharing our house with them since they tend to poop, well, everywhere.

We'll get them, maybe not yesterday but maybe today or tomorrow or soon.

I wonder if they laugh in their little hiding holes because our cat lacks the claws required to get the job done?

We Didn't Start This War.....

But we are certainly going to finish it and win.

I am not talking about Iraq, I'm talking about the mice that have decided that our house is a safe haven. I wonder if they know our cat has been declawed (not something we did, she came that way when we adopted her)? Or maybe they just came over from the wankers who used to live next door but had to move because he couldn't afford his mortgage and child support payments to his daughter because she sued him for them?

Either way, it doesn't matter, traps are being set and placed, the mice are no longer welcome and though we are engaging in a catch and release war, we shall prevail!

The question is where to release them when we do catch them? My wife thinks the slough is fine but it isn't all that far from here and they could pretty easily just wait until nightfall and then come back up the hill.

The traps we're using are the kind that you put some cheese or peanut butter in the end and then set the door. When the mouse enters, its own weight triggers the door to drop down and lock it in.

We don't want them dead, we just don't want them living here.

Updates as the war progresses.