Send help: Ninja mice have invaded my house
What do you do when nothing seems to get rid of the rodents?
In the Chinese zodiac, 2024 is The Year of the Wood Dragon.
I humbly suggest that it also be known as The Year of the Ninja Mouse.
Janine came up with this moniker in reference to the critters that made an appearance in her house a few months back.
Mice make their way indoors when the weather turns cold. This is particularly true in older houses, where they have more little cracks and crannies to use.
When you see a little sign of their presence, you put out a trap or poison or a sticky pad, and soon, there is no more sign of mice.
If you have a cat, you may never even have to go through this ritual.
No big deal.
Until now: The Year of the Ninja Mouse.
HOW IT ALL WENT WRONG
I don’t think we’ve had a mouse in this house since we moved in five years ago.
Until now: The Year of the Ninja Mouse.
At the first sign — on the end table by Newman’s chair, no less — out came the traps. Then the sticky pads. Then the poison. Then came the sightings! Brazenly appearing from under the chair in the corner.
The chair was immediately surrounded by all of the above, with absolutely no impact on the mice whatsoever.
WAGING WAR
Then, one night, Ninja Newman flipped over the chair and Ninja Mouse fell out.
It must have been a bit stunned because it stayed still long enough for Ninja Newman to grab a junk of birch and put us out of our misery.
Haha! Imagine naively thinking that was the end of it!
Ninja Newman has been waging war for weeks now, and now we understand Janine’s pain.
TERRIFYING EVENTS
Poor Janine has gotten on her hands and knees and plugged every crack she can find in her semi-detached house. She has a dog, so she won’t use poison, but her neighbour does. They share a common chimney with old hearths on either side.
The mice seemed to enjoy this route between the houses, often appearing on one side or the other at night while the respective occupants watched TV.
One night, her neighbour reported that a mouse joined him on the couch. Another night, Janine says she had one run up her leg!
I’m tempted to think this is an exaggeration because she’s still in the house, but like she says, where would she go?
GETTING REVENGE ON NEWMAN
Everything in our house has been turned upside down and inside out and vacuumed thoroughly.
They have never touched a trap or sticky pad. They seem to be taking the poison but are still around.
Newman found and destroyed a nest in the basement ceiling. Then one day, he picked up a sweater he had left over the back of the couch in the living room and found evidence of nibbling!
He booby-trapped the sweater. Ha! The hole grew.
He left the sweater out, rejigging the booby traps. The hole grew.
I added insult to injury by saying they must have been eating food Newman had spilled on his sweater instead of understanding right away that they were taking their revenge on him for his nest destruction by using his sweater to rebuild bigger and better.
EXPANDING THEIR TERRITORY
They weren’t even evident in the kitchen at first. Now they appear to have gotten to the top of the fridge.
Newman patrols the kitchen making sure I haven’t left even a crumb where a mouse might find it and sits up at night watching for them.
This morning, they’ve gone too far. I settled into my chair by the window to join the birds for breakfast and discovered two tiny holes chewed in the arm of the slipcover!
(Speaking of the birds, I’ve switched to putting out only suet on a platform feeder, inaccessible to rodents.)
What is your experience with exterminators? Are they all the same? Do they all cost the same?
Help.
Please...