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Mickey’s in da house!

We have mice. Not because we are dirty. But because we live in London. A couple weeks back, in New York, we had mice there too (and one very large rat downstairs by the garbage cans). It’s a part of life when you are a city dweller. In fact, I once heard that in London, you are never more than 6 feet from a rodent of some kind. Pleasant thought, no?

Anyway, in my old life, I would have just popped some poison down in the kitchen and outside on the deck. The kind that the mouse eats, takes home to his family, and dies in his sleep two or three days later. The aftermath of which I don’t have to see. But this is my new life. With children. Children who think nothing of eating paper, plastic and food wrappers. They eat potted pork and baked beans, so what’s a little rat poison?
The problem with most rat poison is that it is actually a blood thinner that builds up slowly and causes massive internal bleeding after several days. It’s extremely poisonous to young children. The alternative would be a manual trap, but I like my children and I would prefer for them to retain all 20 digits until they are at least 5. So what do you do when children and mice try and coexist?
I called the exterminator and explained that we can’t have poison in the house so he’d better have a good alternative. “See you tomorrow, Madam,” was his reply. (It’s the UK, so “Madam” is a polite term. He’s not implying that I run a brothel.) And he arrived almost on time the next day, armed with large sheets of “Rat Glue.”
Well how is that supposed to work? I wait until my children are in bed (because otherwise they would crawl right through it and get stuck.) Then I put the sheets out all over the kitchen. And then I can go to bed or I can wait up and listen for the screaming. What? Yes. They scream. Then he’d like me to just “pick it up and put it in the bin.” Again, What? I offered him cash to return at 6 the next morning and he politely declined.
But this is being a parent, isn’t it? We do things we’d rather not. If I can scrape undigested corn kernels off Zoe’s butt, I can dispose of an unwanted rodent. Or so I thought. For exactly 20 minutes. Then I picked up the glue sheets, tossed them out and decided on a new approach. They do sell “pet friendly, child friendly, no poison, no visualization” traps. You put some tasty treat inside, set the trap and when the arrow moves to, “Caught!,” you chuck the whole thing. So yesterday I bought two of them. And a jar of peanut butter. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Dr. Lara Zibners, Nov 07, 2010

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