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November 10, 2009
The Mysterious Disappearance of the Mousetrap
Needless to say, the unwelcome appearance of a dead mouse in my house yesterday caused me to rally the troops. By “rally the troops,” I mean, “call my father-in-law.” Usually seeing one ant is enough to get me cleaning for days. After seeing the mouse, I felt like I needed to maybe burn the place down and start over. My father-in-law assures me this is not necessary but that maybe we could take some steps to try to figure out how the mouse got in and maybe set some traps.
Anyway, I have long known that there are a couple significantly-sized holes between the basement and my laundry room (which is on one of those half above/half underground levels), and I suggested maybe we should plug those up (which he’s doing for me—I am useless at this sort of thing). So I came home from work yesterday and he’d been looking around, and he said he was wondering if the mouse might have gotten in via “that crawlspace behind your furnace.” When he said this, I thought, What crawlspace? He must mean the space between the furnace and the wall.
But no.
We went down there and he shone my brightest flashlight into what might very well be the portal to the underworld. It’s been there all these years I’ve been living here, and I had no idea. I can’t imagine what it’s doing there. A person my size (i.e. smallish) could maybe crawl in, but why would they want to? I’ve always wondered where the spiders that invade my house in the spring come from, and that is it. It’s like Aragog’s set up shop with Shelob back there.
My father-in-law, intrepid thing that he is, decided that it would be a good idea to put a mousetrap just outside the portal, so that’s what he did. Today, though, he called me at work. Here was our conversation:
Intrepid Father-in-Law: Um, I’m at your house. Did you move the mousetrap?
Me: Oh, no. I was going to go look at it before I left for work, but… no.
Intrepid Father-in-Law: Huh. That’s weird, because it’s gone.
Me: Gone?
Intrepid Father-in-Law: Yeah, gone.
Me: Well it’s got to be on the floor or something.
Intrepid Father-in-Law: No, I looked.
Then he listed all the places he looked. I just looked again when I got home. I even [*shudder*] shone my flashlight into the crawlspace. That trap is gone.
Oh, boy.
Posted by adrienne at November 10, 2009 11:01 PM
Comments
Okay, not to be all alarmist? But RUN!!!!!!!
It's just bad news when they're big enough to move the traps. I'm just sayin'.
Posted by: tanita at November 11, 2009 04:53 AM
Uh, Adrienne? You do realize that this saga is not encouraging when it comes to the annual Thanksgiving gathering at your place, right? Dead mice? Aragog's portal to the underworld? Disappearing mousetraps??
Posted by: skb at November 11, 2009 09:20 AM
Tanita, I'm going to worry when they kidnap Benny and leave me a ransom note.
Sabrina, We'll have all this cleared up by then. If weird stuff is still happening in a week, I'll be stepping it up. My cats are the only creatures allowed to live here who don't pay rent.
Posted by: adrienne at November 11, 2009 09:50 AM
This isn't good. This is, like, horror movie material to someone terrified of small, crawly things like me. I'm with Tanita: RUN.
Posted by: Jules at November 11, 2009 10:20 AM
I've known about the portal for years,but thought you knew.And I always thought,why the he++ don't they block that up?then I figured some pipes or something that may need access or heat must be in there.I wouldn't want to go in there.There.The portal.Very scarey,indeed :-0
Posted by: momster at November 11, 2009 11:54 AM
I hate mice in the house,ewwwwwwwwwwww. I love them in books , portrayed as cute little things, but not in real life. Thank goodness for Ella, and Tom helping you out,hopefully he will be able to find their access and plug it up! I've been known to chase them down with a broom,but with no success. Good luck to you,I'll keep up with your blog and see what tranpires.I'm not crazy about crawlspaces either, too spooky.........
Posted by: Bri's Mom at November 11, 2009 01:01 PM
Mom, Yes, I do think it's for pipe access.
Linda, Hopefully the word's gotten out in the mice community that there's a killer cat in the house.
Posted by: adrienne at November 11, 2009 03:41 PM
This happened at our cottage this year. One weekend, we found lots of evidence of mice -- so much so that we believe our cottage had become party central for the rodent population of the North Country. So, we set four traps before we left on Sunday. When we next arrived, we found nary a trap. Cos thinks Frankie & Benjy have obsconded with the traps and are building a space craft beneath the cottage.
Posted by: Patty at November 22, 2009 02:28 PM
That is comforting, actually. I often feel like these things just happen to me because I am in some way incompetent. Like somehow it's my fault the mice stole the trap, you know? Even though I know that's kind of crazy. I suppose it could also be a Rats of NIMH thing.
Posted by: adrienne at November 22, 2009 06:02 PM