Of Mice and Men

A little more on the subject of mice: they are beautiful. Their perfect tiny paws can hold a kernel of corn like little hands. Their heads are finely sculptured, handsome in structure. And I am a sucker for those big black eyes.

Mice live together in cooperative social groups. The fathers care for the babies just as tenderly as their mothers do, and females will nurse each other’s babies. I have watched older sisters care for their younger siblings just like human big sisters. And believe it or not, they are fastidious about personal cleanliness.

Knowing this about mice does not keep me from using d-Con, however. We live in a very old house, and having a few mice around is OK, as long as they keep to themselves. I draw the line at mouse droppings in the kitchen drawers. When I have to empty every drawer and use bleach, the mouse population is out of control.

That is when the little d-Con treats show up in the kitchen cupboards.

This has always been a dilemma for me, and a source of low-grade guilt. I tried mousetraps years ago, but the sight of those mangled little heads was more than I could bear. For a while I used a Hav-a-Hart trap and released them one by one, far away from the house. But one time a crow swooped down and snatched up the little guy before he could scurry into the bushes, and I realized that my attempts to have a heart were probably resulting in death anyway, far away from friends and family.

Those sticky traps are out of the question. How horrible for a little animal to be stuck in glue, alive, terrified, unable to escape. And then what? Do you drown them?

So I resorted to poison. I don’t want to know how they die, if it hurts, if they know they are dying. All I know is that they love the stuff, enjoy a last meal, and then there are no more mouse droppings in the kitchen drawers for a while.

There is a big downside to using poison, however. The theory is that the mice get thirsty and go outside to find water before they die. In real life, it doesn’t always work that way. In real life, usually right before a holiday dinner when guests are coming over, a mouse will die inside a wall. At first, there are just faint whiffs of something “off,” and you wonder if it’s time to clean the refrigerator. The next day, the undeniable smell of death hovers in the air.

I have read “advice” on this problem that includes ripping the wall apart to find the body. Trust me, that is way too extreme. After many years of facing this situation over and over again, I know the best solution is to wait it out. Burn incense, light scented candles, spray room deodorant, open all the windows, apologize profusely to your guests if you have to—in a few days, the problem will go away by itself.

If you could graph the smell of death, you would see a line that rises quickly to a peak, and then suddenly drops off to zero. The smell is always the worst just before it stops. So when you reach the point of gagging when you enter the room, take heart—it is almost over. (Just a little housekeeping tip.)

In a perfect world, mice and men could live together in harmony. We have so much in common, after all. But mice can be a threat to human life—unfortunately for the mice, humans rule.