Mouse wars

So i've been having this little war with some mice in my room. I'm a lover of all animals, but i condone their killing for certain purposes (to eat for example) and I have a hierarchy of tolerance for certain animals that are often called pests. Mostly i just deal with insects in the house, though. it goes like this:

welcomed: i encourage their presence and protect them when i can. ex: spiders, cats
tolerated: I don't mind them if they don't cause a problem. i like to study them. ex: ants, dust bunnies, beetles that get into the flour
discouraged: i don't go out of my way to kill them, but i don't want them in the house. ex: crickets, scorpions, moths, little bugs that fly into lights
kill on sight: i am prejudiced against them and expect them to do harm and no good. ex: mosquitos, flys, cockroaches

Usually I would put the mice in the "discouraged" category, my fellow mammals, i want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but i don't want to share my food with them. and they like to chew stuff up. A while ago, I started hearing chewing noises behind my dresser late at night. I figured a mouse must have take up residence, but she wasn't bothering my food staches so i didn't do much about it. It got more annoying when the noises came more often. When you're lying in bed miserabley hot and sweaty, tiny scratching and chewing sounds get annoying fast. I did some investigations and found that mice had chewed a hole in the wood in the back of the wooden closet cabinet thing i have, and they had chewed up some plastic bags and foam stuff i had stuffed back in the corner. it was time to take action. The cat that lives at my house, Evander, doesn't come inside so often, so i couldn't really blame her for not taking care of it.

I asked around in the market and got some mouse/rat poison stuff. The kid that sold it to me said i should mix it with food and leave it for the mouse, but not to put the dead mouse outside afterward or the other animals will eat it and die, and then i'll die when i eat them. check. I cleaned out around and behind the cabinet and a little grey mouse escaped out from under, so i prepped some treats for his return. The stuff was chemically smelling but looked like dried fish, i mushed it on some bread and stuck it under there.

I was a little concerned about the unpleasant smell of a decaying mouse, so i kept checking to see if it worked, but nothing. maybe he left and didn't come back? that would be good, but no. I left for the conferences and such in Southern Ghana, and when I came back it was obvious that the mouses were still around. Someone had chewed on my candles and even dragged one behind the cabinet. droppings and chewed plastic confirmed the new residents where rodentia. Seems the poison didn't work so well. They had eaten it all and expanded their domain to on top and the side of the cabinet too. I found their reason for all the work when i pulled the bags and stuff out again. The urge to reproduce is so strong, nestled in one of my chewed unwanted backpacks, were four tiny blind mouselets. They were about an inch long each, just growing a bit of black fur, but they squirmed around and huddled together when i exposed them.

My dilemma was this: I don't want them here, they can't survive anywhere else, seems a bit cruel to kill helpless creatures like that, but i also didn't want them to suffer undully. Also, they shouldn't go to waste. I thought about just tossing them outside, but then they would starve/freeze to death. I thought about stomping them, but that would be a little extreme, and not appealing to me. (it would also make a mess to clean up). I decided on a course of action that would lead to the mousies quick demise and anothers benefit. I put them, squirming, in my cats food dish on the porch. Once she found them, Evander was pleased, and so were her children, wild kitties that also live around the house. I do think she was a little insulted at the percieved insult that she couldn't catch her own food. I don't think the babies suffered much.

The next day it was time to clean out the nest for real. I have to empty out the cabinet everytime i want to tip it and get underneath, so it's a chore. when i did, two fat mice ran out and out of the room. I pursued and Evander was there to intercept one. Way to go kitty! She had no problem with a fiesty live prey animal. The other (daddy) mouse escaped for the time being. I thought he was gone, i cleaned up the place good with bleach and all. I didn't expect him back, but then one night i heard the chewing scratching again, so i went back to work.

I tipped the cabinet again, but no mouse came out. I didn't see him, so i tipped it back down. Then I noticed a tail sticking out from under the corner of the cabinet. I poked it and it wriggled around and went under the cabinet, but when i poked under there, i could feel something alive and wiggling. I put a little more weight on the cabinet and there was a little crunch, the tail stopped wiggling. I tipped the thing up again and was able to fish the ill-fated creature out from under the cabinet finally. The tail was a big tail, connected to a big mouse, and his head was squished. I had caught him under the edge of the cabinet when i moved it, and that was the end. I put him in the cat's dish and called them in. This time Evander acted like she had killed the mouse herself, all protecting her catch and growling.

A rather longwinded account of my mundane, if not mildly gruesome adventures. I found it amusing enough.

I also found a baby sheep in a street gutter and lifted it out to be reunited with it's mother. That story is a little more uplifting. as you wish.

love,
-Toby