If there is one thing that annoys The Wife more than me, it is mice.
As if I have not got enough on my plate with retakes of the Securities Institute Fund Management exam/paper coming up in December, recovering from Swine Flu, re-applying for my own job, not to mention trying to get an entry to the 2010 Etape (Tourmalet here comes the Guildford Peloton), and considering the Guildford Peloton 2010 reccie and race arrangements, now we have a mouse invasion in our garage where my beloved Specialized Roubaix and Look 585 are stored and where my Orbit Routier II Tandem will be residing once my brother decides he has had enough of it (he did offer to deliver it this weekend but we weren’t around).
Every winter we get mice in our garage. The garage is integral to the house so is nice and warm and the mice get under the up-and-over door. They make nests chewing up any material, shoes, or packaging lying around or just chew and ruin whatever is in ther garage. Every winter we lay traps or poison and we establish a status quo. This year, however, they have come in greater numbers. Not only are they in the garage but I have seen them running up the back garden beside the fence in daylight!
I have been catching one or two mice a month over the summer but this weekend alone I have caught two (using only two traps). This evening I re-baited my traps after disposing of a body. A couple of hours later I was back in the garage sorting some recycling when I glanced behind the cabinet where one of my traps was located only to find the peanut butter bait was missing. I checked the other trap, the same? What was going on?
I went and got the peanut butter to re-bait and as I was laying the trap I saw a mouse waiting nearby watching me. He was so small I suspect that his weight was not enough to set off the traps. Now I don’t apply the best peanut butter for their delight and in the hope that they will suffer from Cholesterol related heart disease. I expect them to co-operate and set the bloody trap off even if that means they have to do a jig on the mechanism (if you are reading this in my garage Mr Mouse please take note).
What these mice don’t seem to understand is that if I don’t get rid of the mice The Wife will make me remove every single thing from the garage so that there is just bare walls, ceiling and floor, spring clean, get rid of anything which I am hoarding “in case it come in useful some time in the future”, and clean and tidy everything before anything is allowed back in the garage. Such an exercise is probably a minimum of a whole weekend’s work and will involve marital disharmony and a lot of expletives and injuries to my person as I clumsily move things in and out of the garage.
In order to avoid the need for the clear-out the anti-mouse campaign is going to be stepped up this week. I am going to be down at the hardware store first thing in the morning getting poison, traps, Napalm. I am also going to be ordering various electronic mice traps off of Amazon. One way or another I have to win this campaign. There will be no mercy or prisoners. Does anyone know how to call in US Airforce support for this one?
As if I have not got enough on my plate with retakes of the Securities Institute Fund Management exam/paper coming up in December, recovering from Swine Flu, re-applying for my own job, not to mention trying to get an entry to the 2010 Etape (Tourmalet here comes the Guildford Peloton), and considering the Guildford Peloton 2010 reccie and race arrangements, now we have a mouse invasion in our garage where my beloved Specialized Roubaix and Look 585 are stored and where my Orbit Routier II Tandem will be residing once my brother decides he has had enough of it (he did offer to deliver it this weekend but we weren’t around).
Every winter we get mice in our garage. The garage is integral to the house so is nice and warm and the mice get under the up-and-over door. They make nests chewing up any material, shoes, or packaging lying around or just chew and ruin whatever is in ther garage. Every winter we lay traps or poison and we establish a status quo. This year, however, they have come in greater numbers. Not only are they in the garage but I have seen them running up the back garden beside the fence in daylight!
I have been catching one or two mice a month over the summer but this weekend alone I have caught two (using only two traps). This evening I re-baited my traps after disposing of a body. A couple of hours later I was back in the garage sorting some recycling when I glanced behind the cabinet where one of my traps was located only to find the peanut butter bait was missing. I checked the other trap, the same? What was going on?
I went and got the peanut butter to re-bait and as I was laying the trap I saw a mouse waiting nearby watching me. He was so small I suspect that his weight was not enough to set off the traps. Now I don’t apply the best peanut butter for their delight and in the hope that they will suffer from Cholesterol related heart disease. I expect them to co-operate and set the bloody trap off even if that means they have to do a jig on the mechanism (if you are reading this in my garage Mr Mouse please take note).
What these mice don’t seem to understand is that if I don’t get rid of the mice The Wife will make me remove every single thing from the garage so that there is just bare walls, ceiling and floor, spring clean, get rid of anything which I am hoarding “in case it come in useful some time in the future”, and clean and tidy everything before anything is allowed back in the garage. Such an exercise is probably a minimum of a whole weekend’s work and will involve marital disharmony and a lot of expletives and injuries to my person as I clumsily move things in and out of the garage.
In order to avoid the need for the clear-out the anti-mouse campaign is going to be stepped up this week. I am going to be down at the hardware store first thing in the morning getting poison, traps, Napalm. I am also going to be ordering various electronic mice traps off of Amazon. One way or another I have to win this campaign. There will be no mercy or prisoners. Does anyone know how to call in US Airforce support for this one?
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