The Mouse...

Grant and I have been enjoying living in Liverpool and there's lots of stuff we really like about our new flat, however...there's a few things we don't like...
After being here about a month, we discovered we had a roommate we were unaware of, who wasn't chipping in with the rent...his name was The Mouse. He was first discovered one day when I was washing dishes and I saw a dark figure scurry past me out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see, but he was to fast, so all I'll I saw when I turned around was Grant looking behind him and then said 'did something just brush past my leg?' and when he then turned around and saw the look on my face, he knew...we had a mouse. Then we found the problem, a couple boxes of Jr Mints left over from the wedding we forgot about on the floor, the corners all chewed through.



So, we dropped everything and headed out to get some traps. We tried both the two big superstores near by, only to find that this animal welfare conscious country only sells poison. I guess they consider bleeding to death for 9 days more humane than a trap, but to each his own I guess.


So, not wanting to have this creature living with us, Grant decided to create a mouse trap. It is composed of a ramp up the side of a bucket, with a wire across the bucket going through an empty coke can which is slathered in penaut butter. The concept is the mouse runs up the ramp, tries to step onto the can to get the peanut butter and it rolls like a log in water and he falls into the bucket and is thus, trapped.
Grant swears he has caught a mouse with this device before, but we were not successful. Our mouse either doesn't like peanut butter or is very sure footed. So, we placed the poison out and waited.

For five days, there was no sign of The Mouse, we thought we might be in the clear...then he showed his little rodent face to me when he came running into the living room one evening. We shut the door and then Grant and I proceeded to play a game of cat and mouse (us being the cats). We tore our living room apart trying to catch the bugger, with me screaming and jumping from the chair to the couch and Grant chasing him with a broom.



But he was quite fast and surprisingly can jump quite high. Finally, we cornered him under the couch and there was only one way he could go, so grant flushed him out and I trapped him in an upside down wast paper basket.

We weren't quite sure what to do with him now that we had him. I wouldn't let Grant kill him, but I wasn't keen on the idea of having this dirty rodent living with us under a waste paper basket. So, we slid a piece of cardboard under the bin and took him outside.
Again, my animal loving instinct took over and I wouldn't let Grant kill him or put him in the garbage bin, so I made him chuck him over the fence. Which was actually quite comical, seeing his little mouse body flying through the air in the moonlight.

So far, we've been mouse free since then, but we still keep the poison out...and we're moving come January.

The END