a mouse named Houdini....

[misfortune]

I have to give credit to my man fry from shacknews. This is his story, I hope he gets credited everywhere its pasted....

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Not long after moving into our new home we discovered that it had an already established tenant. On our third day as homeowners as we unpacked boxes and organized them into the garage he decided to use Wendy’s foot as a launching pad into the hole underneath our hot water heater. This displeased Wendy tremendously. By displeased I mean she ran, screaming, into the house as if she had just been the victim of an attempted assault. Between fits of her furiously checking her hair for something she blurted out “mouse!”

Seeing how this mouse had moved in well before us I felt he had as much right to be here as we did, minus the whole not-paying-any-bills-thing. Even though, I resolved he was perfectly harmless and took no immediate action. A few days later as I was searching for a component cable for some device for the television he came flying out of the box at impossible mouse speeds in a vertical leap, bumped into my cheek, fell onto my hand, and pushed off hard, sprinting to his water heater corner. Apparently this final push had required quite a bit of exertion because looking down I noticed he had deposited a fresh lump of feces onto the back of my hand in doing so. Either that or it was his own way of telling me to go **** myself.

I decided that the mouse had to go. I figured the crime of being brazen was not deserving of the death penalty so the next day I picked up a “humane” trap at Lowes. The idea is they can walk in, but they can’t walk out. Once you’ve caught it you can pick the trap up, take it out to a field somewhere, and release it unharmed. I rubbed peanut butter inside as instructed and laid it out for him to find.

The next morning the first thing I did was check my trap. The peanut butter had worked flawlessly as it had been completely devoured, but my trap contained no mouse. Houdini, as I now called him, had not only eaten all of the peanut butter in the trap but had apparently licked it clean in an act of defiance. I could honestly not see or smell even a trace of peanut butter. Turning the trap in my hands I inspected it. Door went in. Door didn’t go out. Door went in. Door didn’t go out. Peanut butter was six inches or so inside the door. Mouse was nowhere near six inches long. Hmmm.

Assuming this had been a fluke I reloaded it, this time with an even larger dollop of creamy, delicious Peter Pan. As I did the day before, upon awakening the next morning the first thing I did was check my trap. All the peanut butter was completely licked clean once again. I tried once more that night only to have the same result the next day. Defeated, I stopped loading the trap.

Many months have passed since then and I have been used as a catapult a number of times as, in the great Houdini’s style, he was a fan of a very strong exit. Since tomorrow is trash day, Wendy and I were out in the garage about half an hour ago trying to break down old boxes so we could get rid of them. She refused to put her hand into any box so I had to inspect each one, give it the all clear, and then hand it to her to take out to the curb.

I picked up a small box to inspect it, opened it up, and saw that it contained an old gift basket one of us had received at work which contained a variety of chocolates. What I found odd though was how powerful the smell of chocolate was since it should have still been sealed. I inspected it and saw a large box of Godiva with a one inch or so diameter hole chewed out in the corner. I removed the lid out of curiosity to see how much damage Houdini had done.

Lying in the center of the box on his back, his gigantic, fat belly protruding upwards, was Houdini. His eyes and mouth were half open. His face, whiskers, legs, and entire body was covered in streaks of sticky chocolate. According to the label, this box contained almost a pound of chocolate and Houdini had consumed all but two and a half morsels over God only knows how many days. Caramel, nuts, fudge, and every kind of imaginable filling had been decimated. Wendy was returning to the garage and I showed her the box. Her response was “Wow.”

Houdini lived and died hard. He knew it was better to burn out than to fade away and exited this mouse life in an appropriately blaze of sweet, delicious glory.

RIP, Houdini.

[John B.]

Since I live in a 250 year old home & have 3 20'X50' shop buildings dealing with mice is a fact of life. Recently they crossed the line so now it is all out war with no thought whatsoever given to "humane" traps! Several days ago I got in my 535i & opened the glovebox for the first time in 2 weeks. First thing I see is a pile of shredded tissues which I moved aside to find a small nest built from the multi colored insulating material BMW uses on the back of the panels. I've found their leavings in the airbox before but this is the first time they've moved into my car.

[icesoft]

Since I live in a 250 year old home & have 3 20'X50' shop buildings dealing with mice is a fact of life. Recently they crossed the line so now it is all out war with no thought whatsoever given to "humane" traps! Several days ago I got in my 535i & opened the glovebox for the first time in 2 weeks. First thing I see is a pile of shredded tissues which I moved aside to find a small nest built from the multi colored insulating material BMW uses on the back of the panels. I've found their leavings in the airbox before but this is the first time they've moved into my car.

I had similar issues, cleared the first nest out of the glovebox, took a 700 mile trip. Upon ariving at our destination, I found that the mouse had again been munching on some paperwork in the glovebox. A box of D-CON was placed in the glovebox, and overnight the little critter ate nearly 1/4 of the box of bait... Never did see him anymore after that.

Now my car is on the lift in the barn, and whilst replacing the rear shocks, finding a broken spring, waiting on new springs to come in, and installing them, I found that another one had tried to move into the pocket in the back of the rear seat where the rear passenger headrests would slide into the seat. I slid the seat out the door and knocked the mouse nest out of the pocket, and to my surprise, a pile of D-CON that he had been 'stealing' out of the glovebox and storing for safe keeping... A rather loud and sinister 'Mwa ha ha ha ha....' could be heard coming from the garage like a mad scientist when I saw that I doubt I see anymore of him either....