Intruder in My Apartment :-(
I’m Home.
After much turbulence, my plane lands at New York’s LaGuardia Airport 52 minutes behind schedule. I leave the airport, get into the cab and tell the cabbie my address.
When I arrive at home, I slip the key into the keyhole and give it a turn. I open the door and I drag my luggage inside.
It’s good to be home.
Time to get comfortable. I remove my sweater from my body and kick my socks and shoes off. Now, I’m walking around barefoot in a t-shirt and jeans. That’s when I hear it. There is a noise in my bathroom.
“What the f*ck was that?” I wonder as I stand very still. Maybe I’ll hear it again.
rattle. rattle. rattle.
Yep. I hear it again. “Maybe that sound is actually in the apartment next door and it just sounds like it’s in my apartment,” I reason. I call Bro. I’m on the phone with her for about 15 minutes when it happens. Right before my very eyes, the largest f*cking mouse that every walked on the planet appears out of nowhere and charges toward me.
I scream at the top my my lungs and into the phone. “OMG, I just saw a mouse!!! I’m coming over.” While still on the phone with Bro (moral support), I grab my purse, my keys, my shoes. And, I run out of my apartment.
“You need a boyfriend,” Bro sighs.
For the next 24 hours I will be a refugee in the home of my absolutely lovely friend Bro until I figure out if I am going to either: (a) buy glue traps, steel wool and poison or (b) a cat.
PLEASE HELP!!! Does anyone have any advice or suggestions for getting rid of a mouse or, God help me, “mice” if there is more than one? I haven’t been home in over a week and I know that they are gutting the apartment downstairs. Years of living in Chicago taught me that renovations = mice. What can I do????
February 6th, 2006 at 2:13 am
Get some spring traps. Use peanut butter for bait. Those glue things don’t always work. I have friends who have set them out and seen little paw prints on them the next day. Get some of the baits but make sure they are the kind that disintegrate the mouse with little or no smell. It may begin its journey to the other side inside the wall.
Yes you could use “live” traps, but why? This isn’t Stuart Little. There’s millions that look just like it. They’re not, I repeat NOT endangered.
February 6th, 2006 at 6:51 am
I know someone who somehow managed to trap a rat in a shoebox. They didn’t know what to do with it so they stuck the whole box in the freezer and sat around awkwardly till the frantic scrabbling slowly stopped.
February 6th, 2006 at 6:57 am
I dont get freaked out by mice, usually a trap or some poison does the trick I suppose, although call me soft I’m in favour of those steel cage thingies that can catch him and then you can dump him in a friendly garbage dump…Goodluck either way!
February 6th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Get yourself a nice big pussycat! They work every time! In more ways than one! LOL
February 6th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
NOOOOOOOO SPRING TRAPS!!! Yes, they work, no I don’t care about snapping the necks of vermin, but Jeez, then you have to clean it up! Yucky! glue traps work but then you have to hear the mouse scream and scream and scream. It’s pretty horrifying.
You probably scared it back into its hole. Just go back home armed with a bag of steel wool from the hardware store, stomp loudly to announce your presence, put on some gloves, and find the hole. It’s probably around a pipe, a radiator or behind the stove. get your super to move it if you have to.
If you plug the holes, Mickey or Minnie won’t be back.
February 6th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
I hate to tell you this but if you’ve seen one you probably have 20 of them. They breed like crazy. Anyway, if you saw no signs of them before they probably came from downstair. But since they have moved in and unpacked it is going to be very hard to get rid of them. Inform the super ASAP and if they don’t take it serious you must threaten them with legal action. You have the right to live rodent free by law. You should also inform the exterminator (assuming one comes monthly) so they can give you the traps and poisons) and find where the rodents are entering your apartment. The super MUST plug up those holes. Mine were coming from the heating vents which come to find out had gaping holes in them. They had to take metal pieces to drill into the wall to keep the little bastards out…I still hear them scratching trying to get in. They are persistent little f*ckers. They are so annoying because they are noisy and nasty little those little pellets everywhere…check your kitching cabinets to see if there is any evidence…also behind your stove and fridge. Best of luck because it is traumatizing to have live with unwanted animals…worse comes to worst, get a cat. They are also cute and furry but at least they eat out their own bowl and use the litter box.
February 6th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
I agree with MissB. Once you trap them you actually have to dispose of them which would freak me out beyond anything.
February 6th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Traps. little cages = a humanitarian effort. Glue traps = waging war. either way is gross. with the trap thing you have to let the bugger loose somewhere and with the glue trap you have to pick up the trap and dispose of the foul-smelling corpse.
get a cat.
February 6th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
So sorry to hear that you came home to a little visitor! Though as I was reading your post I thought for SURE that a big hairy dude was gonna come up outta the tub drain!
Yeah, tell your super and make him/her give you the necessary equipment (at least to start). While I think that it would be lovely to have a kitty prowling around to help you out, you are out of town often and there is no guaranty that a cat will actually do anything with a mouse. We had two cats in the last apartment we lived in (before we bought our first house) that had mice. Yeah, the cats chased them but didn’t know WHAT to do once they caught one. We found one of our cats sitting on a still living mouse one morning because he didn’t know that it could have been food if he’d needed it to be.
February 6th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
I grew up on a farm. Spring traps!
They are cheap and you just chuck the mouse and the trap in the garbage.
Then bleach everything down.
Stacy
(formerly chatterbox)
February 7th, 2006 at 8:15 am
raymond: You are hilarious!!! “They’re not, I repeat NOT endangered.” I’m right there with you. I don’t like the live traps or whatever they are called. I’m not trying to booby trap my mouse, I’m trying to KILL it. He moved in here without paying rent. He deserves to die!!!
Jay: He FROZE it to death?? That’s funny … slightly disturbing, but funny nontheless!!
Darwin: I’m going the “kill it” route. :)
Tonito Bandito: You know, I’m REALLY considering it. I’m allergic to cats. But, if I have to choose, I prefer itchy eyes over having a mouse in my house.
missbhavens: My absolutely fabulous downstairs neighbor must be the sweetest guy in the world because he volunteered to collect and throw out the trap for me if a mouse gets caught in it … By the way, I’m taking your advice. I now talk, stomp, sing and do whatever is necessary to annouce that I’m a home and to keep it away from me.
Anonymous: One of my friends says the same thing; basically, “there’s no such thing as a mouse.” So far, that’s all that I’ve seen. And, oddly enough, I haven’t seen him again since the first time. But, I’m not delusional. I’m sure he’ll be back. And, perhaps, the next time he’ll bring a friend or two or three. I’m going to call the super today. I don’t know where the hole is and you’re so right about getting him involved. I have a right to live without this new “roommate” in my house. I’ll keep you all posted to let you know what, if anything, the suer does.
Mint Chutney My downstairs neighbor is a prince. When he volunteered to come get it if I catch it, I wanted to smooch him right on the lips.
Anhoni Patel: “Traps. little cages = a humanitarian effort. Glue traps = waging war.” And, I’m going to war baby!!! :) For added security, I’m seriously considering this whole cat thing.
MamaChristy: That actually happened to a friend’s wife, but it was the toilet instead of the tub. She lifted the lid so that she could, um, do her business and that’s when she found the thing splashing around in the toilet bowl trying to avoid drowning. She called her husband at work and made him come home to take care of it. Ahhhh, that’s love! :) And, about the cat … that’s one of my fears: I’ll buy it and the thing won’t do anything. Either that or it will be like my friend Dina’s cat. Her cat is odd. When it finds mice, it tortures them within 1 inch of their lives and then it clutches the almost-dead creatures between its teeth and then it brings them to her as if to say, “Look what I did mommy! Aren’t you proud of me?!?!” Odd.
Stacy: Is bleach better than Fantastik / Scrubbing Bubles / whatever? I wiped everything down with the stuff I normally use to clean my bathroom because that stuff all has a slight amount of ammonia in it. Maybe I should use pure bleach instead? It’s probably stronger, huh?
February 7th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Yeah Bleach is better.
Just mix with some water and wipe everything down.
:)
February 8th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Thanks, Stacy!! I’ll do that this evening when I return from work.