Humane Rodent Control
Mice. Oh so cute. If only they didn’t leave their little evidence everywhere. Last year, a little mouse got into my apartment. I heard some chewing in the walls at night for quite a while but couldn’t figure out exactly where it was coming from. I went out of town for a weekend, and when I came home I saw little pieces of cat food on the kitchen floor. This was very curious, considering that I do not have a cat.
What had happened was that this little mouse had chewed through the wall in my pantry while I was gone and went straight for the emergency bag of cat food I keep on hand for when I find strays. I quickly cleaned up the little mess that he had made, and I searched for the point of entry. I found his little escape route and I plugged up the hole with some steel wool. I then proceeded to clean my whole kitchen with peppermint-scented soap and essential peppermint oil (mice are not fans of peppermint!).
Thinking that I had dealt with this issue, I went to sleep right after baking some vegan apple-raisin muffins—leaving the muffins out on the counter to cool. I woke up in the morning, ready to have a muffin for breakfast, and—all the muffin tops had been eaten! This was so cute and so frustrating all at the same time-all I could think of were his tiny little hands holding the crumbs and chewing incessantly on the treasure that he had discovered as I slept.
If you build it, they will come, and things can get a bit exasperating if you don’t solve the problem completely. Over the next couple of days, I did a thorough check of my whole apartment and found two more holes that he was using to go in and out. I sealed those up, and things have been mouse-free ever since.
Cruel methods are never necessary. Please take a moment to ask Lowe’s to stop selling glue traps.
