Me vs. the Pests

I often feel that animals of the annoying breed, are taunting me. For instance, we have some flies that seem keen on coming in the house. They annoy me, and seem to know it. I have tried multiple reasoning strategies with them, none of which have worked so finally as a last case resort I filled a bottle with soap and water and went all out nuts on these flies. Accomplishing my goal – minus one fly. Who, took it upon himself to fly into my FACE every few minutes as if saying “Cant get me!” Im sure the neighbors wondered why I was doing karate styled moves in the kitchen while yelling things like “ILL GET YOU!” in hindsight I can see that the poor fly was probably just as confused as I was and in a frantic effort to fly away home – he kept flying into me, probably scaring himself at the same time.

But lately, there is another problem (much bigger than flies) that has been driving me crazy. We have a rat or mouse (depending on what google page you want to believe) living in one of our walls here at the shop. I have done everything to try and give him the impression that he IS NOT WELCOME here. I have emptied all his stashes of dog food, we have taken the dog food up at night, I have cleaned, and vacuumed out his houses (yes he has many) and still – he refuses to pack his mouse bags and leave.

The other day I heard him. A very distinctive mouse like sound coming from the piano. Mom had mentioned a few days prior that while playing the piano the mouse had attempted to “Help” her. This combined with the now suspicious noises coming from the piano led me to my belief that I could and would end this mouse business that very night. Armed with absolutely nothing, I marched boldly to the piano and removed the bottom door. I heard mice feet run up the piano, and smiled, knowing how to get him to come down. I opened the top, mouse feet ran down. Knowing the bottom was already open, I got down on all fours to see what I could see. And that is when I came face to face with the monster living in our walls.

Now, Im not scared of mice or rats, Im much more scared of spiders and bears. But staring into the beady little eyes of this gremlin I let out a scream and took off across the office floor. Just as I jumped onto the safety of my chair, I heard him, racing across the floor as well before disappearing into the wall. I let out another scream. Just for good measure, and vowed to end this mice business.

Ever since then, the mouse, has been taunting me. Every morning there is a little pile of “Something” outside his hole. One morning there was some insulation. The next morning, a small pile of rocks, another morning there was some mice droppings. Each and every morning I have busted into moves to stop this mouse from ruining our wall. To no avail.

We have tried live traps, baiting with peanut butter, cheese and even dog food. But he hasn’t even taken the bait. A customer set us up with a bucket/soda can styled trap – it has sat there, tin can hanging on for dear life with a little hint of peanut butter on it for the past three weeks. And still, nothing.

Each evening I plug the mouse hole up. Hoping that someday, he will give up and push the rocks out of the way for the final time. So far, that hasn’t happened. Because this morning, when I went to check for holes – this is what I found.