So, I was finally able to move out of my one bedroom apartment in San Antonio out to a 3 bedroom home on 3 acres out in Seguin. When I viewed the house for the first time, I saw a mouse run from one of the bedrooms into the kitchen. I don't know how long the house has been vacant, but I figured that a house in the country is probably going to have some pest control issues, and that I could handle it.
The first night I was out here, I was awoken at 3 am by what sounded like scratching on the floor in the kitchen. I didn't feel like getting up to investigate, and when I finally got up, I didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary. I set some mousetraps since I knew I had at least one mouse.
When I got home, I noticed that the peanut butter I had put on the traps had all been licked off without springing the traps. I also noticed a trail of pretzel crumbs coming out of a previously unopened bag of buffalo chicken flavored pretzel bits which I was looking forward to eating. I had a few bags of chips, 2 store brand knock off chips, and the pretzels I really wanted to try, and the I guess the mouse had the same tastes. I wasn't happy.
That night I had a friend of mine over watching Burn Notice dvds, and he saw a mouse running along the floorboards in my living room. We cornered it eventually, and I smooshed it with a roll of paper towels.
Anyways, I started looking for other signs, and I moved the microwave and toaster off my counter to look around. There, behind the toaster oven was a gigantic cockroach, he was looking at me, his face was big enough to have an expression that said "Yo, where did you sweep all those crumbs that were here earlier?" I informed him that he was not a welcome guest in my home, crushed him, and staked him out in my yard as a warning for other pests who want to encroach on my space.
This morning, I went to Home Depot to buy mousetraps and a few other items I need to get ready for Jenn and the kids getting here. I bought some of those ultrasonic pest thingamajigs, a few more mousetraps, and one where mice walk into the box, but can't get out, as well as some roach traps.
I set my traps and went out on a run, went to check out of my old apartment by cleaning and turning in keys, and out with a few friends, and came back. More peanut butter had been licked off the other style of traps I had bought, maybe field mice don't weigh enough to trip them. I looked at the little box trap, and didn't see anything, so I picked it up, and lo and behold, there was a mouse in it, hiding under the trap door.
I brought it close to the ultrasonic thingy to see if it would react to whatever sound that thing claims to put out. I think it's a crock, the mouse didn't do a thing when I plugged it in right next to it.
Well, there's one adventure for this week.
In other news, at the academy we got to put out a car fire, and a liquid fuel fire. When they lit the fuel pit, it started up really quick, and a giant plume of black smoke started blowing out towards the highway. It was amazing how fast the heat radiated out to where I was standing, and equally amazing how fast it dissipated when the fog streams went up. It made for a really cool day of class.
