MICE
(Warning: this is a graphic post, containing excessive violence.)
I discovered a mouse in my apartment last Wednesday. I live in the East Village of NYC, so a mouse is as commonplace as a rich suburban 15-year old posing as a squatter. But me and mice, oh man---
The only other time I'd seen a mouse in my apartment, it was the summer of 2001. I was living in the bucolic armcandy land of Jersey City, New Jersey. It starts harmlessly enough; one mouse rears its misshapen head, and I chase it around for 2 early morning hours with trash cans and spatulas, and call an exterminator in the morning.
In this case, the mouse turned into 15 mice, and stayed all summer. They lived in my walls, my closet, my stove, under the sink, under the couch. 5-10 minutes after the lights went out, they were miniature vultures, eating away at my sleep and sanity.
I saturated the dark corners of my apartment with traps. An exterminator gave us some 'live' traps we couldn't find at our local hardware store; these are traps where the varmint is lured into a comfy haven of peanut butter and darkness and the door closes behind him, and then I carry this shaky Lego contraption to a nearby vacant lot to let him loose. Ironically, our exterminator filled a handful of these traps with poison. That's how they roll in Jersey.
I also lay the glue traps. Glue traps are grisly. Once the mouse steps on it, it tries to use its head and body as leverage to push itself off the trap, and the head and one side of the torso stick. By the time it's found, it's still alive but with but with its legs, forehead and one entire side of their body all attached to this cheap plastic pad.
It's horrifying to catch a mouse with a glue trap. It's awful to see a creature struggle helplessly for its life, and even worse to see it take 15-18 shits in a 4 hour period. Somehow, the first mouse I caught with a glue trap suffered a much, much worse fate...
My ex and I had a small dog. He was nervous with the mice being around, but after the exterminator's visit, it got worse. When mice die of poison, the crawl into the walls and die, and the stink is unbelievable. As constant and unbearable as it was to us, it was a hundred times worse to the dog. He stopped eating, and he stopped sleeping. It got to the point where he curled up in a ball and shuddered nonstop for a few days.
My ex finally took him to her parents. While they were gone, I knew I had to get rid of the smell, but wasn't sure how to get rid of a dead mouse in the walls. And then I stumbled upon a glue trap that I'd forgotten about, hidden underneath a small kitchenette.
In it was a mouse that had been dead for at least 5 days. How did I know? Easy--it was half-eaten by maggots.
*********
Five years later I'm a mouse assassin living a humble life in the East Village. No dog, no wife. I went to great pains to hide my reputation from the rodent community--I buried my copies of 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle' and 'The Secret of NIMH' in the Greenwood Cemetery ages ago.
But the mice came back. And they came back to a fight.
After losing my Wednesday to mouse-chasing, I showed up at the hardware store on Thursday to stock up on traps. Picture me in that 3-minute montage in every A-team episode where BA, Murdoch and Hannibal build some kickass death machine and Face looks on and pretends he knows how to use a screwdriver.
I bought some of the 'live' traps again, for old times sake, plied with sweet chunky peanut butter. But these mice are martyrs and kamikaze pilots--they beg for the glue traps. Once you go glue you never go back.
I discovered that the mice were coming in from the wall underneath my couch, and had been for a while; the collection of droppings looked like a wild rice pilaf. I put some live traps and glue traps underneath the couch and went out. I came back, fell asleep, and woke up to a mess.
The mouse had opted for the glue over the peanut butter. It had pushed itself out into the open, a good *15* feet from where I had lay the trap. and was now underneath my stereo system. I went white.
It took me a couple hours to work up the nerve to collect him. When I did, I found he'd pushed pushed the trap into a small piece of speaker cable that was now stuck in the trap with him. I tried to sweep him into a dustpan with a small broom, and came to the pale realization that the speaker wire was going with the trap unless I found a way to separate the two.
In retrospect, there were probably easier ways to do this, but in the moment, I was freaking and watching a mouse struggle for its life. I came to the irrational conclusion that the only way to make the separation was to put my foot on the trap and yank the speaker cable free. I don't know if my foot was on the edge of the trap or on the mouse itself, and I'll never know, because it went dark for a few seconds.
Somehow I got this mouse into the trash, caught my breath, and tied the bag up. I went underneath my sink for a fresh trash bag, where I keep old grocery bags in a large garbage bag. I opened the cabinet and heard rustling in the plastic--a second mouse had found his way into my collection of garbage bags. I immediately felt relieved; I knew I could simply carry this bag down to the street and let it out alive. After the I put the trash bag in the hall and came back into the apartment to grab my keys.
Well, something odd happened. In the few seconds I was back in my apartment, door standing wide, I heard the trash bag in the hall tip over. I ran back out and sure enough, the bag was on its side. Two seconds later, I saw the mouse emerge from the trash bag, and it was wild-eyed. It looked right at me, then made a break back through the open door of my apartment. I panicked and made a kick at it.
It froze, and fell over, and started squirming. It writhed for 10-15 seconds. In a moment of panic, I slid it out further into the hallway, still convinced it was coming back for my apartment, but it had stopped moving. Then I looked down at the mat outside my apartment door and saw a what looked like a small bloodstain. The lighting in my hallway is dim, so I walked up to the mouse and put my face as close as I could bear so I could see what had happened.
I had kicked the mouse in the face and brained him. Blood dotted his lower jaw and formed a ruby-red smile on its tiny face that looked like wax lips, like Jack Nicholson from Batmouse.
A horrifying experience.
EDIT: But the photo's back up.
I discovered a mouse in my apartment last Wednesday. I live in the East Village of NYC, so a mouse is as commonplace as a rich suburban 15-year old posing as a squatter. But me and mice, oh man---
The only other time I'd seen a mouse in my apartment, it was the summer of 2001. I was living in the bucolic armcandy land of Jersey City, New Jersey. It starts harmlessly enough; one mouse rears its misshapen head, and I chase it around for 2 early morning hours with trash cans and spatulas, and call an exterminator in the morning.
In this case, the mouse turned into 15 mice, and stayed all summer. They lived in my walls, my closet, my stove, under the sink, under the couch. 5-10 minutes after the lights went out, they were miniature vultures, eating away at my sleep and sanity.
I saturated the dark corners of my apartment with traps. An exterminator gave us some 'live' traps we couldn't find at our local hardware store; these are traps where the varmint is lured into a comfy haven of peanut butter and darkness and the door closes behind him, and then I carry this shaky Lego contraption to a nearby vacant lot to let him loose. Ironically, our exterminator filled a handful of these traps with poison. That's how they roll in Jersey.
I also lay the glue traps. Glue traps are grisly. Once the mouse steps on it, it tries to use its head and body as leverage to push itself off the trap, and the head and one side of the torso stick. By the time it's found, it's still alive but with but with its legs, forehead and one entire side of their body all attached to this cheap plastic pad.
It's horrifying to catch a mouse with a glue trap. It's awful to see a creature struggle helplessly for its life, and even worse to see it take 15-18 shits in a 4 hour period. Somehow, the first mouse I caught with a glue trap suffered a much, much worse fate...
My ex and I had a small dog. He was nervous with the mice being around, but after the exterminator's visit, it got worse. When mice die of poison, the crawl into the walls and die, and the stink is unbelievable. As constant and unbearable as it was to us, it was a hundred times worse to the dog. He stopped eating, and he stopped sleeping. It got to the point where he curled up in a ball and shuddered nonstop for a few days.
My ex finally took him to her parents. While they were gone, I knew I had to get rid of the smell, but wasn't sure how to get rid of a dead mouse in the walls. And then I stumbled upon a glue trap that I'd forgotten about, hidden underneath a small kitchenette.
In it was a mouse that had been dead for at least 5 days. How did I know? Easy--it was half-eaten by maggots.
*********
Five years later I'm a mouse assassin living a humble life in the East Village. No dog, no wife. I went to great pains to hide my reputation from the rodent community--I buried my copies of 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle' and 'The Secret of NIMH' in the Greenwood Cemetery ages ago.
But the mice came back. And they came back to a fight.
After losing my Wednesday to mouse-chasing, I showed up at the hardware store on Thursday to stock up on traps. Picture me in that 3-minute montage in every A-team episode where BA, Murdoch and Hannibal build some kickass death machine and Face looks on and pretends he knows how to use a screwdriver.
I bought some of the 'live' traps again, for old times sake, plied with sweet chunky peanut butter. But these mice are martyrs and kamikaze pilots--they beg for the glue traps. Once you go glue you never go back.
I discovered that the mice were coming in from the wall underneath my couch, and had been for a while; the collection of droppings looked like a wild rice pilaf. I put some live traps and glue traps underneath the couch and went out. I came back, fell asleep, and woke up to a mess.
The mouse had opted for the glue over the peanut butter. It had pushed itself out into the open, a good *15* feet from where I had lay the trap. and was now underneath my stereo system. I went white.
It took me a couple hours to work up the nerve to collect him. When I did, I found he'd pushed pushed the trap into a small piece of speaker cable that was now stuck in the trap with him. I tried to sweep him into a dustpan with a small broom, and came to the pale realization that the speaker wire was going with the trap unless I found a way to separate the two.
In retrospect, there were probably easier ways to do this, but in the moment, I was freaking and watching a mouse struggle for its life. I came to the irrational conclusion that the only way to make the separation was to put my foot on the trap and yank the speaker cable free. I don't know if my foot was on the edge of the trap or on the mouse itself, and I'll never know, because it went dark for a few seconds.
Somehow I got this mouse into the trash, caught my breath, and tied the bag up. I went underneath my sink for a fresh trash bag, where I keep old grocery bags in a large garbage bag. I opened the cabinet and heard rustling in the plastic--a second mouse had found his way into my collection of garbage bags. I immediately felt relieved; I knew I could simply carry this bag down to the street and let it out alive. After the I put the trash bag in the hall and came back into the apartment to grab my keys.
Well, something odd happened. In the few seconds I was back in my apartment, door standing wide, I heard the trash bag in the hall tip over. I ran back out and sure enough, the bag was on its side. Two seconds later, I saw the mouse emerge from the trash bag, and it was wild-eyed. It looked right at me, then made a break back through the open door of my apartment. I panicked and made a kick at it.
It froze, and fell over, and started squirming. It writhed for 10-15 seconds. In a moment of panic, I slid it out further into the hallway, still convinced it was coming back for my apartment, but it had stopped moving. Then I looked down at the mat outside my apartment door and saw a what looked like a small bloodstain. The lighting in my hallway is dim, so I walked up to the mouse and put my face as close as I could bear so I could see what had happened.
I had kicked the mouse in the face and brained him. Blood dotted his lower jaw and formed a ruby-red smile on its tiny face that looked like wax lips, like Jack Nicholson from Batmouse.
A horrifying experience.
EDIT: But the photo's back up.
posted by stinkrock at 10:38 PM
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