I just killed my first mouse. I’ve caught mice before, in traps, mice that either died before I found them trapped or soon after I had removed them from my home.
Let me explain, we have mice in our apartment. Sadly, our landlord has made it abundantly clear that he does not care about this, or about maintaining the house we live in at all. Tomorrow, our downstairs neighbors are moving out. They told my wife that the landlords inaction on the mice problem was a main driver of their decision to live elsewhere.
So, knowing any solution would have to come from my efforts alone, I went to the store to buy mousetraps. I have had some significant issues with hand pain in the last year. As a result, I am very protective of my fingers and I didn’t want to use the traditional snap traps out of fear of one being triggered accidentally while I was setting it and catching one or more of my fingers.
Then there is this article I read recently about the American bald eagle. The American bald eagle is a true conservation success story. In 1963, there were only 417 know nesting pairs in the United States, down from an estimated population of between 300,000 and 500,000 in the early 18th century. With enhanced legal protection under the Endangered Species act, and especially as a result of the total bad put in place on the pesticide DDT in 1972, the US bald eagle population is once again estimated at over 300,000.
Unfortunately, not all of the bald eagle news is so rosy. Although no longer endangered, a recent survey of bald eagles in the United States found over 90% to have rodent poison in their systems.
Knowing this fact about bald eagles had me convinced not to consider using poison to solve my mouse problem. The remaining solution that I arrived at was glue traps. I had once previously used a glue trap and caught a mouse with it. That time I was so freaked out by the struggling and incessantly squeaking mouse I had in my glue trap that, in a panic, I simply scooped up the mouse and the trap into a trash bag, wrapped that in another trash bag and deposited the whole bundle in the trash bin outside our house. Cruel, I know, but as I said, I panicked.
This time, as I laid out my glue traps, I was determined to handle things better. So, an hour ago, when I first heard the telltale squeaks and then saw the glue trapped mouse with my own eyes, I did remain calm. This time there was also a new complication, the trapped mouse had managed to drag itself and the glue trap far enough across the floor to the point that half of its body was now lying over an extension cord, which was also glued to the trap.
I knew the first thing I had to do was kill the mouse. I got a large old volume from one of our many bookshelves, a book I would be willing to part with. In this case, I chose one titled “Emerson, Poet and Thinker” that I inherited from my parents. It was a hardcover book, large and heavy. I used it to swiftly club the little mouse to death, ending its suffering and my discomfort at its cries.
Then, realizing that there was no easy way to pry the extension cord from under the mouse corpse and that I already had a replacement, I put mouse, cord and trap into a trash bag as before, but this time silent, and took them out to the trash.
I am actually fairly certain that this is the first time I have ever killed a mammal with my own hands. I can’t say I am proud, but I am a certainly relieved that I reacted without so much panic this time.
We are unable to have a cat in this apartment, so I am left to wonder about a better mousetrap.