No Exit

The pitter-patter of little mouse feet in the ceiling above our bed: at first we thought it was just another aspect of country life, like dirt roads and septic tanks. But after three years of listening to the rodent symphony--which sounded like they'd built a little mouse adobe and were constantly rearranging their little mouse furniture--we decided to take action.

Marcus the exterminator showed up promptly after our call and toured our house inside and out, including the roof, searching for weaknesses in our home's anti-mouse defense system. He found several: a small mouse-sized opening in the vent leading to our mechanical room, several spots in our north portal where the interior vigas protrude to the exterior, and all fifteen of our roof vents. Marcus explained that even though the vent openings were twelve inches off the roof's surface, a determined mouse could jump that high and climb right in.

"If there were only a few mice and hundreds of houses out here instead of the other way around, you wouldn't have a problem," he said. He set out several pieces of mouse poison--little blue cubes guaranteed to do the trick--and advised us to seal the roof vents with steel mesh and baling wire. "You'll smell dead mice in your ceiling pretty soon, but at least you'll know the stuff is working."

After he left, Steve set to work stuffing steel wool into gaps and closing off the roof vents with 1/8" wire mesh. It took two days to complete the job, but when it was finished we felt confident that we'd sleep peacefully.

No such luck. The first night, we found a mouse trapped in our shower stall, frantically looking for water. By morning it was gone, only to be replaced the next night by another one sneaking into our living room. Luckily our grandkitty, Bertie, had just arrived that day and was on the alert, and we were able to shoo it out the front door before Bertie could tear it to shreds. A few days passed with no further mouse sightings, but after our two grandkitties and their owners, Drew and Liz, left, we descended into Rodent Hell. For each of the next five nights, a mouse would drop into our house by squeezing through the slats in the ceiling; since we'd sealed off access to the outside, they had nowhere else to go. We barricaded ourselves in the guest bedroom, thinking that they wouldn't come to that part of the house, but just as we were about to fall asleep we heard that telltale scurrying above our heads.

Desperate from lack of sleep, we decided to set traps throughout the house. We found traps at Walmart--plastic rectangular 'mice cubes'--promising an effective and humane alternative to traditional mousetraps, but our tormentors turned up their little snouts at those wimpy cubes. Finally we set out spring-loaded traps, baited them with peanut butter, and caught the biggest and craftiest of our visitors.

Five nights have passed since then with no further sightings. The only remaining evidence of Mickey, Minnie, and their brood is that distinctly sweet smell, eau de rotting rodentia.