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
12 Comments:
Well that's disturbing and disgusting.
Sorry, can't get behind this one, my man.
I realize the mice drove you, your ex, and your dog crazy years ago. But this is a bit over the edge.
Perhaps there are some bigger issues here...
Uh, that was the desired effect. It's disturbing, disgusting, unsettling, etc. But that's been my week.
(I took the picture down, though, that was too much.)
From now on I'll only write about the happy sunny stuff that happens to me.
Uh, I get it. But the writing didn't disturb me at all. The picture did.
Anyhow, please don't limit yourself to the sunny, happy side of life. It would undoubtedly be even more disturbing.
So I guess a picture is worth at least a thousand words, or more.
I was actually trying to do you a favor by posting the pic. That way, when I kill and eat my neighbors in 5-10 years, people'd have something to point to as explanation.
He was quiet, kept to himself... other than the whole mouse murder spree.
I think I related the story of Frankenmouse to you. When I was at my parents' house in CT once, an old-fashioned trap went off in the kitchen. I went out to investigate and clean (I'm not as skittish about mice) and saw the mouse with it's head flattened under the trap.
As I approached, however, the mouse suddenly reared up on its hind legs and began walking towards me. Only the tiny piece of wood on which it was partially impaled prevented me from seeing the murderous rage in its eyes.
Anyway, I took a spatula, knocked him over and cracked his neck.
"its head."
Dammit.
Grammar droid cannot be shut off.
Wow! Great story. I don't get as freaked out about mouses as you. (Then again, that Jersey City experience must've been ungodly.)
Back in the fall, Lucas and I woke up to find a dead mouse on our floor. He found it and said "Hey Dad, there's a dead mouse in the house!"
And we laughed, at the incredulity of finding a dead mouse on the floor next to the lamp, WITHOUT a glue or peanut butter honey trap, and at the rhyme of it all.
We showed Mom. She shuddered. We laughed. Again.
That story would be even funnier if you were Canadian!
wow. at least console yourself that the whatever that pleasure stuff is that makes mice go limp in cats' jaws was probably shooting off in its brain when you kicked it to death. prpbably accounts for the joker smile.
in any case, braining was probably nicer than slow suffocation in a garbage bag.
i myself once had a very traumatic elevator ride with a screaming, crying, shitting mouse on a glue trap. you can get them off by pouring oil on them and prying them off with a pen. works pretty well.
There was a mouse at S&M for a while. My plan was to starve him out. I got rid of all the food lying around, chips, and such. I still heard him rummaging around. I couldn't figure it out until I found a little mouse sized nibble hole in Buck's box of Milk Bones. I forgot that dog food is still food to a mouse. Placing Buck's Milk Bones on the keyboard stand seems to have sent the mouse elswhere looking for easier snacking, probably George's room.
i'm with you, mike. even though i would never want to share my living space with a mouse, i like small furry creatures enough that i would have a hard time figuring out how to get rid of them without getting all skeeved out. perhaps it's best that my dream of living in NY will likely never come to fruition.
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