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Please Help Me Rid Myself Of / Name The Mouse In My Basement

Dead Mouse

There is a mouse in my basement. The squeaky little guy isn’t too much of a bother, but it shits places, my roommate swears she’s allergic to it, and I fear it may breed. We’ve tried three methods of extermination since discovering our new roommate: First, we laid out poison; then, we set sticky traps; finally, we baited two snap traps with peanut butter. Here’s what we’ve found:

Poison: mildly uncomfortable at best! The only effect the posion seems to have on the situation is to make me nervous that the mouse will spread it around and feed it into my food supply … possibly intentionally.

Sticky traps: not very sticky! The other day, I dropped a take-out menu on the floor and accidentally palmed a sticky trap when I bent down to pick it up. I escaped handily. I didn’t even need to use my other hand to help free myself.

Peanut-butter-baited snap traps: delicious! Our basement mouse not only eats the peanut butter off our death machines: He licks them clean. The traps themselves don’t seem too interested in snapping. The scant information I could locate online concerning mouse tongue muscles suggests that they are “similar to limb muscles.” What does it all mean?

Can somebody help me out here? I am not covering my kitchen floor with upside-down duct tape. So, should we just go ahead and name the little guy and prepare to throw a mouse pups shower?

16 Responses to “Please Help Me Rid Myself Of / Name The Mouse In My Basement”

  1. Darrow Montgomery Says:

    Super glue a few rice kernels to the snap trap trigger.
    Best to do this before cocking the swing arm.
    Our mouse/mice are named Horace

  2. Sommer Mathis Says:

    Amanda, I had good luck with these. Just make sure to put the peanut butter in the back of the platform. Happy hunting!

  3. Amanda Hess Says:

    Whoo, $35.00. At what price, a mouse’s life?

  4. Urban Explorer Says:

    Adopt a cat

  5. victoria Says:

    I’d loan you my cat but he’d just sit in a bag and watch the mouse. Or get stuck in the trap himself.

  6. Karl Says:

    His Most Royal Excellency Captain Pumpkinpants

    For a name, of course

  7. Concerned Says:

    While doing your research, have you come across any information on rats being protected under the cruelty to Animal laws in the District. Poison and Glue traps are acceptable but seem to make them suffer, however if you strike it with an object I’ve heard that’s a felony. Is this true? By the way how does a law abiding citizen dispose of a rat or mouse that’s stuck on a glue trap but still healthy and alive or stumbling due to the ingestion of poison.

    A concerned citizen

  8. t Says:

    get one of these
    http://www.wintrest.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/ugly-cat-tat.jpg

  9. Christopher / DC1974 Says:

    You’ve got lowsy clue traps. I get them stuck to my shoes, my fingers, my kitchen utensils. A whole lot of things besides mice.

    On Saturday I came into the kitchen to see a mouse bathing in the Wok which was soaking on the stove. That was a little creepy. I threw a lid on it and threw the whole thing in the trash. Carbon footprint be damned.

  10. Adam Says:

    Peanut butter with the snap traps works (depending on your definition of works). Sometimes too well and you get brains on the wall.

  11. AmazonRed Says:

    You don’t have a mouse. You have mice….mice…

  12. Rosco H. McFlibbs Says:

    Name it Splinter! Then, in addition to a rat (who is obviously wise and nimble) soon you’ll have radioactive, crime fighting, pizza ordering turtles as roommates.

  13. Maura Says:

    Haha. I am having the same problem, but the mouse is in my kitchen. I killed it the peanut butter snap-trap way, just before Easter, prompting Jeffrey to suggest that, like Jesus, it would soon be resurrected. And that when it’s back, it will enact its revenge, and that it was probably constructing a people trap for me right now.

  14. Kate Says:

    I saw a mouse on the stairs at work today. You would think a mouse would have better places to go than an office building with no cafeteria and no kitchen, but a couple of weeks ago one of the little shits got into my desk drawer and ate half a chocolate bar. Also, how do mice climb stairs?

  15. DCer Says:

    Ahem. To quote my exterminator, If you can see a mouse with your own eyes then their nesting area is so full of mice that they’re venturing out, probably about 72 mice will be the tipping point where they need to venture out. If you waited a week after seeing the mouse to think about it then you have over a hundred mice.

  16. Amanda Hess Says:

    Holy shit

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