Tag: mice

House Next Door: I can do Hard Things

Today I went next door with my husband and two youngest sons, ie, “the little boys”. The little boys acted as runners for me since I was working upstairs. They carried all the keepable stuff down the stairs to the bedroom we’ve set aside for that purpose. Andy tackled the bathroom upstairs and I tackled the kitchen and pantry closet in the kitchen and the boys helped with the upstairs hallway.

Here’s the upstairs hallway:

And then after.

Here’s the kitchen:

In this pic Andy is the bathroom doorway. This is of course the upstairs kitchen that hasn’t been used in I don’t know how long. The fridge still has food in it though, but its been so long that there is no longer a smell. If that makes any sense. I did not clean out the fridge.

There’s also a pantry closet.

The kitchen wasn’t too bad, but the pantry closet still had old food in it, or rather, old rusted out cans and boxes that had been demolished by time and rodents. Speaking of. I had Andy move the dresser out the pantry and I opened the drawers. Noticed a mouse nest, threw it away, and then shortly after saw a big fat mouse go running across the kitchen floor. Which made me scream and the little boys came running and then they said they hoped another mouse would run out so they could see it. The mouse made the rest of the cleaning more stressful as I did not want any creature to jump out of something I was moving and perhaps run up my arm or over my foot or really just get anywhere close to me. Fortunately no more mice were spotted.

And then the kitchen mostly done.

Andy did the bathroom.

While cleaning the bathroom he found these.

And here its done.

We didn’t have our trailer today so we piled up things by the upstairs window to be thrown down later and then had our garbage bag pile. Definitely a full trailer load.

We wrapped all that up and then I came back home to jump in the shower. Only to discover that the little boys had just started their showers so I had to wait. So I sat on my back deck and pondered how much we have completed in one year. Just working at random times when we have had a free day. That upstairs kitchen and bathroom were rooms I had been gladly avoiding as they just seemed so gross and overwhelming. And now they are done. I have decided this house project is going to be my easy reminder that I can do hard things.

My Cats are Lame

My cats stink at being cats. 

 

We have had a mouse in our upstairs for a couple weeks, and you think, well, surely if you have four cats, this will not be a problem at all. In fact, the first time my daughter frantically texted me from her bedroom (on a night when my husband was not home), telling me she saw a mouse in her bedroom, my first response was, put the cats in your room! They’ll save you! (Cause I’m sure not going to do anything!) And my daughters ran and got the cats and the cats’ response was to get comfortable on my daughter’s beds (the cats are usually refused entrance to the teenaged hallowed domain). 

 

I talked to my husband about the mouse problem and he suggested that our cats would surely take care of it. Just give them a minute. 

 

Several minutes or weeks later, (today actually) my daughter complained again about a mouse in her room. Ugh. I guess it’s time to go buy some traps. I hate killing things. Even annoying mice. 

 

Then tonight as I was trying to get kids to bed, my daughter starts yelling out in the hallway. 

 

THE CAT HAS A MOUSE!! 

 

I ran to the doorway of the room I was in and saw the cat with a very alive mouse in the hall. 

 

Playing with it. 

 

Not hurting it. 

 

Not killing it. 

 

Not dragging it away out of our sight. 

 

Nope. 

 

Just letting it go and then chasing it whenever it ran. 

 

I looked around for something to jump up on, just in case the mouse ran in my direction. Little kids started running into the hall to see what was happening and I was yelling at everyone to get back into their bedrooms. Yelling at the cat to just kill the mouse or take it away! Then the mouse ran under a folded sheet that happened to be on the floor. (I have no idea why there was a folded sheet on the floor, it seems to be a favorite pastime of my children to haul things off the linen shelf and just leave them on the floor, it’s a mystery.) 

 

The cat was circling the sheet, trying to figure out where the mouse was and the five year old thought he should come and pick up the sheet, just to see what would happen. I’m yelling for him to get away before the mouse runs up his legs. Then the eleven and thirteen year old boys run out of their room. 

 

What’s going on? 

 

GET THE MOUSE!! YOUR CAT HAS A MOUSE! CATCH IT! 

 

They both quickly jumped into macho-man mode and tried to catch the mouse. Working in tandem, one son pinned the mouse to the floor with a stuffed animal. 

 

Ok. What are you going to do now? 

 

He shrugs. I don’t know. 

 

Then he lets it loose again!

 

DON’T LET IT LOOSE AGAIN!!!

 

But he redeems himself by scooping up the mouse with the sheet and making a run for the stairs to take it outside. 

 

YAY!! You are our hero!

 

Dumb cats.