The Mouse in the House

To be honest, I don't remember why I walked into the kitchen. It may have been to get a glass of water. Or maybe to slip a dirty plate into the sink. Or to give Olivia a cat treat or a bit of milk.

Doesn't matter, really. I walked into the kitchen, and Olivia immediately followed, as she nearly always does. I was about to do whatever it was that I was going to do when I heard the plastic Target bag on the floor near the trash container move.

I stopped and stared. So did Olivia.

The Target bag had fallen off the counter and onto the floor after my last visit there, but had I just knocked something off the counter to cause the noise that both Olivia and I had just heard? A spoon? A sponge? A pepper mill?

None of the above. Nothing on the floor but the bag--and whatever had just made it move.

Olivia and I watched and listened. The bag moved again. I Leaned down, looked closer, touched one of the red bullseyes at the outer fringe of the bag. It moved again. This time, I saw a small dark shape through the white-and-red plastic--roughly the size of a mouse.

A rodent. In my apartment. Again. Really? REALLY?

I quickly shagged Olivia out of the room, opened the back door (so I could rush out with the varmit, if indeed I could actually catch it) and grabbed a cloth to toss over the bag, which I did.

Two unfortunate realizations happened next.

First, when I lifted the cloth, I discovered that the mouse wasn't in the bag, as I'd supposed, but under the bag. Consequently, it made a dash for the back door.

Second, when I opened the back door, I should have propped the screen door open as well. Had I done so, the rodent would have scampered out and never been seen again. Instead, when it reached the base of the screen door, it did an abrupt about-face and ran back into the apartment. Since I was standing where the mouse had already been, it ran past me and made a sharp left into the dining room.

This was a problem. I'm in the midst of rearranging La Casa del Terror, so there are piles of stuff everywhere--plenty of cover for a midsized mouse. I'd have to depend on Olivia's tracking abilities and my own hearing to zero in on the little bugger. I grabbed the longest implement I could lay hands on--an unopened roll of Christmas wrapping paper unearthed during the rearrangement--and flipped on the dining room light.

Olivia had not failed me. She was crouched low, tail twitching, staring at the cat bed, which the mouse had to be either in or under. This was not the brightest rodent on the world. In a roomful of hiding places, it chose not only the most obvious one, but the one that afforded it the least number of escape routes. It had two choices: It could run toward me (and likely get clouted with the Christmas wrapping roll), or it could run toward Olivia (and likely get eaten).

It chose the latter.

Bad choice.

When I poked the pet bed with the wrapping paper, the mouse ran away from me and toward the plant by the dining room windows. Olivia pivoted, pinned the mouse to the hardwood floor with her paws (she has no claws, but is young, strong and willful) and clamped down with her jaws.

"Good girl!" I exclaimed as Olivia held her catch fast in her mouth. I reached under the plant stand, pulled her out and ran toward the back door. When I got out past the screen door (which, by this time, I'd propped open with a white vase), I shook Olivia from side to side to dislodge the mouse from her mouth.

One problem: No mouse fell from her mouth. It was gone. She'd dropped it on the way out. Which meant it was still in the apartment.

Damn.

I set Olivia down in the kitchen and retraced our steps. I didn't have to go far. The mouse was lying just beyond the doorway between the dining room and the hallway--very, very dead.

I quickly covered the body with the Target bag and cloth and swept it all into the dustpan. One brisk trip the the Dumpster later, the invader was gone.

olivia was now parker in the dining room, mere inches from where the mouse's body fell out of her mouth. She scowled at me (as only a calico can scowl) and cried. I'd taken away her hard-fought prize, and she was not pleased. I was, though, and I gave her extra kitty treats as a consolation prize.

There was still a troubling question hanging in the air, though: How had the mouse gotten in? Had I not sealed all the most likely entryways? The kitchen barriers seemed intact. What about the bathroom, where the rat from two summers ago had most likely gotten in? The plaster that had been knocked out of the wall was still in place, but as I felt around the seal, I found a nickel-sized hole at the base of the seal. A hole more than large enough to allow a midsized mouse access to La Casa del Terror.

I found the can of Great Stuff sealant that I'd used last time and shot enough of it into the hole to seal it well. Great Stuff is, well, great stuff, and the new hole is now plugged, but will that be enough? Will that prevent another invasion?

This is the third rodent to make its way into my apartment in four years. I have to assume it won't be the last.