Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Shudder

[Mum, you might like just to skip this one.]

Scratch, scratch. Scrape, scrape. Rustle, rustle. This time it is not a false alarm. We have mice.

They're somewhere under the floorboards in our bedroom and they are very noisy. It seems that while we've been watching episode after episode of Prison Break in the comfort of our haven of a bed, the furry critters have been working on their own escape plan UNDER OUR VERY FEET.

We've squeezed poison down all the little gaps between the planks and I even invited some neighbours around yesterday evening provided they came accompanied by their cat. I invested all my hope of every sleeping again in the hunting instinct of their pet.

Unfortunately our feline saviour was visibly shaking as he came into the house. We let him loose in the bedroom and he dived straight under the bed and stayed there for over an hour until we'd finished the apéritif and our neighbours slunk home with their cowardly, useless cat. Back to square one. Scratch, scrape rustle.

Deborah sent me a link to this post in the Guardian about the impossibility of ever ridding onself of mice. Someone in the comments mentions mice repellents which emit ultrasounds so I googled that and trawled through descriptions of thousands of electronic devices. I'm tempted, but friends tell me they're useless.

You know how when anything remotely alarming happens to you people insist on telling you about how much worse it could be / might get. "Ah you're having a baby? I know a woman who was in labour for seventeen straight days and ended up giving birth to a baby with three legs". "Going to the dentist, are you? My cousin got a bug from in a dentist's surgery. His entire jaw rotted off. I was at his funeral just last week." Today at work a colleague told me "Got mice have you? I have a friend who woke up in the middle of the night with a rat on his pillow and the rat bit his face." So please, only comments on infallible tips for total and complete mouse eradication ..........please. I may never sleep again.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just get some traps, they work wonderfully!

Lesley said...

Andy: It does sound obvious doesn't it. But the problem is that they are under the floorboards and we can't get traps down there. But I think I will get a couple anyway.

Antipodeesse said...

Ear plugs and sleeping pills then.

Lesley said...

No gnawing or droppings in kitchen cupboards - I wouldn't be living here any more if there were. Will try the clingfilm trick and the Mars bar trick. Can't imagine what they can be finding to eat between the floorboards and the downstairs ceiling.

Anonymous said...

Oh my god- i have exactly the same problem- rats trapped under the floorboards and the downstair ceiling - the gnawing noise!! Where can i place the poison - i have 2 kids (1 of them a toddler). I called the council - they baited outside and they baits were untouched but would n't do anything inside. My downstairs fooring is solid oak flooring
what to do ?

Lesley said...

Anonymous: The poison worked for us. No more noise, no more sleepless nights. Good luck!

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