War on mice

I’ve been at war with the mice now for around two months. They caught me unawares with an early Autumn offensive and gained a foothold in the house before I knew they were there. However, a swift and coordinated counter-offensive soon decimated mouse numbers in the house, and moved the front line to the garage. Much like the Gaza strip and the ruggedly beautiful region of Kashmir, the garage remains disputed territory.

The mice’s point of entry into the house is the internal door to the garage, which has a gap underneath it. I’ve since blocked this off with a makeshift doorsnake (aka a towel). This has stopped incursions into the body of the house, but needs to be replaced properly each time the internal garage door is opened to be effective.

Last Friday, I returned home after having a few drinks at the pub after work, and saw that the ‘doorsnake’ had not been replaced properly. I thought nothing of it at the time as I had far more pressing concerns – namely a full bladder. In the contemplative moments that followed while I addressed this concern, I realised that I was not alone in the WC.

A pair of beady eyes watched me from behind the toilet brush holder.

The eyes met mine and for a second we contemplated each other – me in a slight alcoholic haze and he with a look of pure mousey malice.  The situation gradually dawned on me and I let forth a manly bellow (which may also have been a girly scream, depending on your social construction of reality), at which point the little furry bugger made his move.

And it was a tricky move. He wasn’t keen on a dash for freedom. Instead he circled around behind me, making the safe assumption that for the time being, I would be immobilised in front of the lavatory. Unfortunately for the mouse, a lack of higher cognitive skills meant that he had not planned his next move. He ended up circling around behind the cistern, ending up in the same position behind the toilet brush holder.  

We were at an impasse.

I slowly backed out of the WC and quickly set about positioning traps around the toilet door. I retired smug in the knowledge that the mouse’s days were numbered.

Source: juliasegal.tumblr.com

Little did I know that I was facing my most devious mousey foe yet. The cold light of morning revealed that the bait was gone from the traps, but they had not been sprung. In horror, I checked all the traps in the house and found that the furry mastermind had managed to same trick on all of them. And he was still in the house.

The mouse triumphed that day. The war continues.