The Mouse and the Stove

So since I recently had a scare where my husband "might" have seen a mouse in our home, it brought back all the traumatic mouse stories of my childhood. This is the best or most traumatic, whatever.

We lived in a home which had mouse troubles from time to time. I could blame this on the fact that my mother worked full time, my father never cleaned and there were six children living in the house at the time but it wasn't just us. Our whole building was infested and we had the joy of living on the first floor directly above the garbage collection room. We (our nine story building)had to throw our garbage down these little chutes where it magically disappeared. In reality it was collected in larger bags in the basement until garbage day. Anyway, on this particular evening my father caught a mouse in a clear vase where it was jumping up and down in an effort to get out while my father held a broom over it to keep it in. (Shudder) Anyway, this is where I have adopted my first fact of mouse life. There is never just one mouse. My parents, at least to me, expressed the thought that perhaps it was just the one and that would be it. Uh huh. Anyhow, two mornings later, I was innocently making french toast when a mouse ran across the kitchen, practically under my feet. (Shudder) Anyway, a chase ensued. The house is in complete uproar as my mother woke my father up to force him to deal with the mouse and at one point it was cornered behind a bookcase in the living room. Now for me, at this point breakfast is over. There is no way I could have eaten breakfast in the same kitchen after seeing a mouse practically run across my foot. I was also very upset with my parents in the vein of this is why we should have a cat. (My family's love/hate relationship with cats will have to be dealt with in a future post. Needless to say I fall on the love side of the line.) Moving on, I went to school. I return home that afternoon to find the super of the building searching the walls for an entry point. I inform them that it came out from under the stove. After a short time, he pulls out the stove. OMG. Behind the stove were, in addition to mouse droppings, a ginormous hole approximately 18-24 inches across. Here is where all the mice were coming in. Believe you me, there is no way only one mouse made that hole. (Small break while calming convulsions) Anyway, the super closed up the hole with steel wool, a great deal of Spackle and our family welcomed Winkie into the home.

So this story is why when my husband said he "might" have seen a mouse, I made him pull out the fridge and stove from the walls to check for droppings and openings. Nothing. Phew. So now I can sleep at nights.