Rustling of Mice Makes a Strong Mother Feel Trapped Like a Rat

I had thought of myself as a modern woman who is capable, self sufficient, independent, smart – all in all a wonderful person. Someone who faces a crisis and manages.

That thought is no longer necessarily true. My self-image was destroyed the morning a mouse ran across my kitchen floor.

I know, I know. The poor little mouse is more afraid of me. After all, I'm quite a bit bigger.

But I can't help it. Having a mouse, or as it turned out, mice, in the house caused me to fall apart.

The day after the intruder made his presence known, my husband went out of town on business. I thought he should have canceled the trip.

I could handle the seven children, a jammed disposal, a dead car battery - all the usual things that happen when husbands aren't available - but I couldn't handle mice.
After spending a day in denial, I decided to take action and quizzed everyone for a solution to mice. I was told that if I used traps set with peanut butter, the extermination would be a snap (pun intended).

After purchasing the traps, my involvement ceased. I gave them to Patrick, my 12-year-old, and had him set one in the bread drawer. That appeared to be the mouse's headquarters, judging from the gnawed plastic bread bags and chewed pieces of bread.

The next few mornings, before I went downstairs, I had the kids check the drawer to see whether the coast was clear. Waking up to a recently departed mouse trapped in my bread drawer was an experience I preferred to miss.

Before the bread-drawer visitor was evicted, however, the theory that there's never just one mouse in the house proved correct. One evening as I was getting the kids ready for bed, we discovered what became known as the upstairs mouse.

He had a long tail. This fact became significant a few days later, when I was traveling from room to room collecting dirty clothes.

I tossed the clothes on the floor of the laundry room, ran down the hall to tuck the girls in bed, and then came back a moment later. I scooped up the clothes only to have a mouse jump out of the pile. My reaction could most likely be described as an excellent cardiovascular workout. After this incident, "jumpy" would best describe my frame of mind. I never knew when I would be face to face or toe to tail with a mouse.

One morning, I was leaning over making Johnny's bed when I felt a rustling along the cuff of my pant leg. It was a mouse. He ran out of the room, and I jumped on top of the bed.

We set a trap under the bed.

The next day I stepped on it.

Opening drawers in the kitchen and doing laundry involved a major mustering of courage. I never got out of bed until I put on my slippers.

After I endured several days of the heebie-jeebies, the peanut butter lure proved effective. One morning the kids ran upstairs all excited to report that we had won the battle of the bread drawer. Once Patrick disposed of the evidence, I went downstairs.
The next morning, my young exterminators gave me a good news-bad news story.

The good news was the capture of the upstairs mouse. The bad news was that he had a short tail. The washing-machine coast was still not clear.
Well, all-out trap setting continued until I felt assured that all the residents of our house were named Cavanaugh.
Despite my aversion to sharing my home with mice, the whole experience made me feel bad.
I wish I could have been more hospitable; after all, it was cold outside, and the little mice just wanted to be warm. It seems extreme that killing them is the only way they get the message that they aren't welcome.
Maybe if they had better manners ... and didn't chew up our bread ... and weren't always darting out of closets or out from under cabinets scaring me . . . I might let them stay.

On the other hand, it is my house!
April 17, 1985