The moose-hoose

[davidn]

After Whitney also sighted the mouse, who sauntered into the living room like he owned the place while the television was on (destroying my theory about him not having been seen before because he would only come out when the house was perfectly quiet) we ordered a trap from Amazon. The one that we got is a long clear-green plastic thing designed to look like a house, with two ends - one is a door that's removable from the top only by human hands, and the other is the trap. When pressure is put on a platform near the other end, a door springs up from inside to catch whatever took the bait inside until the other door is removed manually.

This is a humane mouse trap - as an example of the kind of slush that only the Americans are really capable of, the front of the box honestly reads "Do we have to kill the mouse, Mommy? - No, honey, the earth is big enough for all of us". Welcome to Bleurgh City. And inside, after thanking you for being a kindhearted person, the instruction booklet is also irritatingly hippy (and full of typos):

This allows the mouse to escape without panic, so its survival in the outdoors is more assured. It si [sic] a joy to see a mouse escape, and to realize its life has been spared. This lesson in compassion is best shared with a child!

Before it's devoured by a fox twenty minutes later. Anyway, I set this up when it arrived, baiting it with a pinch of oats and some Honey Nut Cheerios, and left it on the kitchen floor underneath a cupboard that I'd seen it run towards on Monday.

After spending far too long on the Internet as usual, I went to bed at about midnight, and lay awake for a bit trying to forget about listening for the trap, telling my over-aware brain that the noises I heard were just doors being opened and closed next door and that I would be able to check it in the morning. Then, after about ten minutes, I heard an unmistakable plasticy snapping noise, and sat up, waking up Whitney as I said I thought I'd heard it.

Die Maus im Haus

When I dragged the trap out from under the cupboard, inside was the little brown mouse - I was surprised at how clean, sleek and quite adorable it looked compared to the bedraggled look I had expected from a wild scavenging animal. It was running from one end of the enclosure to the other searching for an exit, had already scoffed the entirety of the bait that I had left out, and I had read that they can easily die of panic if you leave them too long, so I resolved to go out and set it free immediately in the only non-built-up space within walking distance.

So I shambled down to the graveyard at half past midnight, feeling a bit like I was going out to dig up some body parts for Dr. Stein, with a torch in one hand and the trap in the other - the mouse banged about from one end to the other at first, but had calmed down by the time I got there. I walked some way into the darkness before setting the trap down near a tree and opening it up, but the mouse stayed inside. I turned the torch off for a moment and then on again to see if it would go in the darkness, but it was still there - but as I leaned a little closer it honestly launched out of the box, going about six feet before landing, and ran off into the night on a Cheerios-induced sugar high that I hope didn't end with it killing every other creature in the cemetery.

I set the trap up again when I returned, and wasn't really any less restless listening for it throughout the rest of the night - but when I woke up, it was still baited and open, so hopefully he was the only one.

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I told you they're pretty :D It's amazing the details that your imagination filled in when you couldn't see it clearly, though!

[davidn]

The first time I saw it, it was a dark cloud on the floor in the corner of my eye, and I thought it must have been a piece of drifting paper or something! Which... stopped to look around before scurrying under a cupboard. It was only after I got a real glance at it a couple of hours later that I realized what it was.

It's definitely preferable to the earwigs we used to find... those have pincers that look like they could kill you (if allowed to spend half an hour crawling up into your brain).

[silvertarna.livejournal.com]

Mice are ridiculously cute - loving the German caption!

[davidn]

I was just considering today how nice it was that despite being completely different words, the English and German for "house/mouse" and "haus/maus" are completely analogous to each other - I imagine they have the same roots somewhere.

[ethelfleda.livejournal.com]

Oooh, it looks different to British house-mice. Added interest there :)

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

Do you have different mice in America? It doesn't look like any of the mice I've ever seen - usually they're one colour all over and have a less pointy face. In fact, having looked it up on wikipedia, I'd say that it's either a deer mouse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peromyscus_maniculatus) or a white-footed mouse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-footed_Mouse) as opposed to the house mice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse) and field mice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apodemus) that we get over here. Unfortunately, your fancy American mice seem to be more adept at carrying diseases, so check yourself for ticks...

As well as panic, mice in humane traps can die from dehydration if you leave them there too long, so don't set the trap if you're going out and don't expect to be back within six or seven hours.

[silvertarna.livejournal.com]

Loads of wildlife is different in America, it's kind of awesome. The robin is the most obvious one, and Americans get very excited over the common blue tit :D

[davidn]

Language, cereal, biscuits, flour, house invaders, there's no end to the differences.

[davidn]

I had never seen a mouse inside before, so I didn't even realize it was different... it looks like it was a deer mouse, but its page says that they live in trees. With the jump strength it showed when it was released, though, it could easily have projected itself through an open window.

I thought that getting it out of the house was the end, but apparently I'm now in danger of catching hantaviruses and Lyme disease - thanks a lot! At least the design of the trap meant that I never touched it...

[diarytypething.livejournal.com]

You don't need to even touch the mouse. Lyme disease is spread by ticks, which tend to feed on something, detach, then bite something else when they get hungry again.

[kjorteo]

Awwwwww. That is the cutest home invader ever.

[kjorteo]

And look at it this way--you could get The Nameless Virus, which sounds so awesome to say that it's almost worth it.

[davidn]

Great! I'll certainly put that on my list of horrible illnesses to potentially get.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

The mouse trap is encouraging you to have more sex with Whitney, to get a child. Think of the bonding experience you could have had. . .of taking your child down to a graveyard at midnight. I don't think that's what the writing staff for that mouse trap had in mind. . .

Also: from now on, I will be mentally replacing every instance of "mouse" with "moose." Makes things much funnier.

[tamakun.livejournal.com]

I still can't fathom why people would kill these little guys. Ever since my days working retail and discovering a mouse freshly stuck on a glue-trap, it would break my heart to see inhumane traps. Also, it was wise for you to drop him off a small distance away - I haven't heard any information on the situation but I don't think they have as much of a sense in finding their way back.

You mentioned the jumping height of the deer mouse - I think even regular mice, like you noted in your story, have incredible strength in their back legs. We once trapped one in a garbage can at work, and it was almost able to escape that, I'd say it jumped a good 2/3rds of the way up, vertically.

[davidn]

I read in the leaflet that mice have a strong homing instinct, but I'm not sure how strong 'strong' is, and whether that meant that going five minutes' walk away to release it would prevent it coming back. However, there are plenty of other people's kitchens between there and our own :X I think that it was just advice not to do it at the bottom of your garden or anything...

I definitely wouldn't have wanted to kill it (though the cheesy box text made a decent effort at changing my opinion) - just look at it!