The Mole Hunter - Part 1

Lights is not a happy girl. Monday night when we got home from work I found a piece of dog food near my bedroom door. I remember thinking, there better not have been a mouse carting the dog food around. I ignored that thought and decided that Holly must have been taking snacks with her when she was napping on my bed while we're at work. About a half hour later I heard Dave say, "WTF? I just saw a mouse!" Then he corrected himself and said that it was probably a mole or vole because it was so tiny. I didn't really care what he called it as long as he caught it. Soon.

Some background for you. I'm allergic to mice or mouse shit or something related to mice. I sneeze, I wheeze, my eyes itch and water and I feel like I'm dying when I'm somewhere that either is overrun with rodents or if you sweep the dust around. When we first moved into our house I started sneezing one night and told Dave there must be a mouse in the house. He laughed and said I was crazy because the house was brand new and it was airtight. There was NO WAY a mouse could get in. As he said this, a mouse ran across the floor in front of his feet. We set traps and caught about 20 before he finally figured out where the furry little bastards were getting in. Once that was moved (it was the dryer vent) there were no more mice and more importantly, no more sneezing. When we bought our cottage it was overrun with them too. I couldn't even clean it. My girlfriends cleaned it before I could breathe inside.

So back to Monday night. Dave looked around and couldn't find it but he thought he saw it in the laundry room vent. He put drops of Oil of Wintergreen in all the furnace vents which made my eyes burn and gave me a headache. I spent the rest of the night with my feet up wishing that I could trade Holly in for a cat. While I was watching 24 I caught a glimpse of movement over in the corner of the rec room. Dave ran for the broom and Holly jumped up from where she was curled by my feet and promptly wrapped herself around my neck. Miss Holly is afraid of brooms you see. While Jack Bauer was saving the world I was protecting Miss Holly from the evil broom.

We still hadn't managed to catch it (or them) and all our mousetraps had been taken to the cottage. Dave brought in the electronic mouse repeller from the garage and plugged it in in my bedroom. That gave me a little comfort but I still slept with the blankets up around my ears. I awoke yesterday morning and my first thought was to make sure there was nothing alive and furry in my slippers. Can you tell that this is really freaking me out? Because it is. Seriously. I turned on every single light switch on my way to the shower and tried to convince Holly to play Find the Squirrel but she just looked at me as if to say, "Whacho talkin' about Mommy, squirrels aren't allowed in the house." By the time I was ready to leave I was relaxing a little until I stuck my foot in my boot without checking it first. I felt something and quickly flung my boot across the hallway. Inside was another piece of dog food. *shiver* That means that a rodent had been inside my boot. I tried not to think of that as I forced myself to once again stick my foot inside my boot and head to work.