Saturday, December 18, 2010

Little Tiny Field Mice and Texas Sized Cockroaches

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.

4 comments:

Jenn said...

Yeah, I really want to move now. All I know is you had better have that house exterminated before we come!

J.F. said...

You should try some of those stick mouse traps. Sort of like fly paper for Mice. We've had decent luck with them at some of the Fire Stations I've worked at over the years.

Wag-a-Muffin said...

Yeah. I read the ultrasonic things are a rip off.

Good luck. (shudder.)

Stephanie said...

Holy cow! Yuck! Maybe you need to put the mouse out in the yard on a stake to ward off the other mice, too! You go with your pest-gorilla warfare.