Of Mice & Men

Living by yourself has it perks but also it's downsides. I just woke up from Joey barking hysterically. It frightens me because I don't have another person here and at 4:15 AM there really shouldn't be much going on.

Au Contraire (sp?).

The day Sara moved out I started some spring cleaning of my own. I got the kitchen table half-way decent. It's messy again. I started cleaning things out of my room. I also got under the kitchen sink to see what was down there. Much to my surprise, there were mouse droppings, or what I thought looked similar to the mouse droppings I had seen in the past.

We had mice a few times when we lived in Lawrence and my parents fought an infestation (sounds worse than it was) of a family of mice last year. They were just in the basement, you know, eating through all of MY belongings. Who knows what they were after? I had stuff ruined from fecal matter and them just chewing on everything. Anyway, I can say that I definitely thought these were mouse turds.

I called the apartment complex and left a message. I think they think I complain about everything, but mice turds is sort of a big deal. If they aren't mice turds then they are really big insect turds... YIKES.

Anyway, they apartment complex put out a notice that the spring exterminator was going to be in our building the other day. I called to see if it was the building or my apartment because sometimes I can't tell from the notices (of course the world revolves around me and mine, so I just wanted to make sure). He was going to do a building a day or something to that affect. They said they would tell him to take an extra look and let me know.

Side Note: Yesterday... Saturday morning I pulled on the ONE drawer I have in the kitchen. The front panel broke off. So I called the office to get a maintenance request. I asked them about the exterminator and they didn't really know. It's ok, sometimes they don't communicate with each other.

I found out the exterminator was coming after I bought a mouse trap and some ant traps. It's spring/summer after all and ants liked our apartment for brief moments last year.

I set the trap right after I got off the phone with the office about the drawer.

Now, back to 4:20. Joey was barking. He came back from the kitchen area seemingly fine, I turned on my light and he just wagged his tail, like "Sorry Mom, I got scared." Stupid Dog!
I sat there for a minute in the bed and decided to check the mouse trap. I didn't hear anything but I usually don't until he barks.

I looked but couldn't tell but the trigger was up, not down like it's supposed to be when set (if I kill a mouse I don't want to see it so it's a covered up trap) and NO WAY was I pulling it out if there was one. So I went and got the flashlight.... much to my amazement, I saw gray fur and a little tail.

The office will be hearing from me tomorrow. I'm pissed. I mean I'm glad I caught it but for real. It was supposed to be taken care of and who knows if there's one, there's more and I don't want to be dealing with dead mice every day/night. YUCK!

People need to get their cats busy.

Mice don't live inside... and definitely NOT in MY kitchen. EWE..... I just want to go buy a bucket and some lysol and some lysol arisol and disinfect everything..... BLAH!

I hate killing things, except for ants, I hate ants more. I don't mind spiders if they stay away from me. They do their part to help. I hate a lot of insects but furry things. I try to avoid killing. Yes, I am a swerve'r of squirrels and rabbits. Yes, I talk to birds and squirrels when I am walking. I'm still a child a heart. I like these things, but I do not want to LIVE with them. Joey is an exception... he interacts with me for real. He depends on me for all of his food, not just the occasional rummage through the cabinet. He also has control of his bowel movements, whereas mice don't. Can you tell I'm uber pissed off right now and completely disgusted?

I am! I want to go wake everyone up. I'm not taking it out of the trap until morning and I feel safe walking to the dumpster. The other morning when I was walking Joey we saw what I think was a crack pipe in the grass where we're supposed to walk the dogs. I was like, "Oh great, I feel really safe now walking him back here!" I called Des Moines Narcotics that morning but didn't tell the office. Now I think I'd better. They've got some issues on their hands and I'm already sick of it.

It's like the first year is the honeymoon year and after that they don't pay attention and everything goes wrong. PSHh. I aint doin' it!