It’s like that horror film series that just won’t die. The one you see a commercial for and think “really? Another one? Isn’t this ever going to end?”
It’s a new year. A new apartment. And yet…the saga continues.
About a week and a half ago, my boyfriend texted me while I was at work telling me he needed to call me about something “not good.” That not good thing? He went into the kitchen to get some lunch…and saw a mouse running across the counter and disappear into a burner on the stove.
Cue “Untitled” by Simple Plan: HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO ME?!!!
Seriously, though. My apartment is way cleaner now than my old apartment was. (Shoutout to my boyfriend Nathan, the real cleaning MVP. I help, but…. he does a lot of the heavy lifting.)
To be honest, the sighting of the mouse wasn’t a total surprise (albeit, a disgusting semi-surprise).
About a month or two ago, I started getting suspicious. I heard some weird noises in the kitchen at nighttime, that would sound like the dogs were eating, but neither would be in there. (We don’t typically leave full bowls out overnight, but sometimes one or both of them will wait a little while between when we feed them and actually eating dinner.)
Then a few days later, randomly, my dog Charlie started getting REAAAAALLY interested in the space under and behind the fridge. I tried to tell myself, after some consoling from a friend, that it was just the drip pan he heard.
Charlie, the mouse spotter extraordinaire
“But why would he just start paying attention to it now?” I asked myself. “And why at night?” Let me tell you….denial is strong, my friends.
(Side note: A few days before all of that, Charlie was really interested in getting to behind/underneath the couch…so we moved the couch but didn’t see anything. Now, I wonder…)
I did, however, have my boyfriend pull out the fridge so we could check behind there. And I swore I saw a little dark gray blob move when I checked with the flashlight… but I jumped out of there so fast, and it was a weird angle since the fridge is blocked in by a wall and some cabinets, and the flashlight was causing weird shadows… so I convinced myself maybe it was a dusty bunny — there were a few under and behind the fridge, after all…even if none of them were in the same spot I saw the blob. Because by the time I looked again, it was gone.
There were a few mouse droppings behind the fridge, but we really had no way of knowing if they were from a current mouse or one from long ago. It’s not like apartment complexes clean behind their fridges between tenants. (Trust me, they don’t. We found two different magnets and another weird piece of plastic back there that weren’t ours.)
So, we have set traps and caught at least two mice. There was a slight sense of victory when we caught the first one, because we knew we had one… but I have heard too many times that if you SEE one, there are like five more that you don’t see.
There’s also a sense of guilt, because mice are kinda cute when, ya know, they’re not uninvited and terrifying you with their uncleanliness and potential to spread disease… so I don’t feel good about catching them.
Either way… it will probably be a while before I feel comfortable enough to say they are gone. And sleep there again.
And even then…all my apartment complex offered to do was give us some glue traps. So… who’s to say they won’t just keep marching in one by one (hoorah, hoorah)? Because they obviously have a place to come in and yet the apartment complex isn’t doing anything to prevent it. (We plugged up where the cords to the fridge and stove go through the wall, but I’m guessing there’s a nice big hole behind the dishwasher we can’t get to.)
Thanks, apartment complex!
A work in progress 