Eek

[daemonluna]

So. About a week ago, I got up, and there was no cat on the end of the bed, and no cat in her spot (towel on the dresser). Instead, they were both in the kitchen, staring at the stove. Ooooookay.

Gee, I thought, I hope it's not a mouse or something. But nothing had been nibbled, and we'd heard no scurrying, and the cats left the stove alone.

Yesterday, I opened the dishwasher, and a mouse streaked across the inside of the door. After slamming the door shut, leaving a message for our landlord (they're in Mexico for a week, lucky them), and calling my mom (my brother: Why don't you just kill it? Turn on the dishwasher!) Barb armed herself with mittens, opened it up and... no mouse.

We then added soap and rewashed everything.

Since then, Minnow has been staring at the dishwasher. She was also staring at the stove again, so I took out all the pots and pans and pulled out the drawer so she could get underneath. At which point, she became far more interested in jumping in and out of the empty drawer.

Have run dishwasher twice since then, vacuumed all crumbs, put dry foods, etc in plastic containers instead of bags. I've heard "shuffle-shuffle-shuffle-STOMP-shuffle" a couple times from our upstairs neighbours, so I think the mouse is visiting them, too.

Gyah. So didn't need this.

Comments

[stephaniejane2.livejournal.com]

I hate to say it, but quit feeding the cats. It's old fashioned, true, but I hear it works. ;)

[daemonluna.livejournal.com]

The thing is, Minnow's become Very Interested in the dishwasher. She informs us that she would love to eat that mouse for us, but she can't get to him! Latest plan: Get mousetrap. Set it IN the diswasher, where he seems to be living. Wait for snap.

[stephaniejane2.livejournal.com]

I am sorry but a mouse in the dishwasher is just so ICK. You've got to get that landlord in there to plug the holes or whatever. It's good that Minnow is trying to help. It would be concerning if that weren't the case!

[daemonluna.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, trust me, I know. (Ew, ew, ew!) I did a lot of running the dishwasher empty, with detergent and bleach. ^_^; And sealing things into plastic containers. And we're waiting for our landlord to get back from Mexico to continue with the mouse-proofing. (I'm afraid if I just start pulling on the dishwasher, I'm likely to disconnect something important. ^_^;)

[svartormr.livejournal.com]

Cats are stalkers and pouncers, so if they either saw something or smelt the mouse, they hang around for a while real still, hoping to catch a glimpse to zero in on the beastie. But Trout and Minnow are well fed, so this is recreation for them and they get easily bored.

I'd suggest either traps (live or killing) or even fly paper, though that doesn't work well with cats. :) Try talking to drakkenfyre as she's a veteran of the Mice Wars (*ducks*!).