Adventures in Mouse-Hunting

Yesterday I asked Josh to take me out on a date that night since I had work off and didn't have to be in to work til later today. However, it didn't turn out quite like I was hoping for. This past week Josh not only had three mice-spottings in his kitchen (including seeing one on the counter), but he also caught four. So, yesterday afternoon I came over with a friend and we planned a few hours pulling out the fridge and oven and catching however many mice were left and cleaning up after their nasty-ness. Seven hours later we finally finished. Cleaning mouse poo and mouse nests out of the bottom of the oven was not quite the romantic night I had envisioned...

The fridge was the first to be pulled out. There was mouse poo and some holes in the wall, but overall, not too bad. Josh patched up the holes and we cleaned that up pretty fast. Once we pulled out the oven though, we quickly realized that this project was not going to be done anytime soon.

Behind the oven was incredibly disgusting amounts of mouse droppings, dead insects, and mold. Gross. That was Josh's project. My job was to pull the drawer out of the bottom of the oven and search inside. I cannot even express how horrified I was to find a few nests in the spaces on either side of the drawer and more mouse poo than I ever thought possible. That was my project to clean. Not even the thickest hazmat suit could have made me feel comfortable enough to clean that up. And all I had were gloves, two plastic forks, a vacuum, and Clorox wipes. I had to shimmy under the oven and reach back with the forks to get the nests and carefully get them to the trash can without dropping mouse poo all over the kitchen floor. I was whining, making disgusted noises, and almost crying, and what was Josh doing? Laughing at me. That was one of the most disgusting things I've done, and he thought it was one of the funniest things he's seen. As you can tell, it was quite the romantic night.

After a trip to Lowe's for mouse traps, caulk, tools, and laminate floor tiles; five hours of patching holes and cleaning under (and inside) appliances; and two hours of cleaning floors, counters, and dishes; we were finally done. I don't think that kitchen has ever been that clean since it was built. But there's still more to do, and Josh will have his landlord do the rest.

But after all was said and done and we were resting on the couch, we heard scratching and scurrying. But no mice were to be found anywhere. My theory? Since all the holes were covered and caulked, there's mice who are now stuck inside the wall. Take that you nasty buggars! At least (hopefully) they can't get back in his kitchen... So here's to hoping!

The gross-ness behind and under the oven

The mouse nests... Ewww!!!

Josh working hard to patch holes and make it so the mice can't climb up the sides of the cabinets. 

The disastrous kitchen

We fortified the kitchen to make sure if mice were running around, they couldn't get out to the rest of the apartment!

Behind the oven and Josh's handiwork. I'd like to see the mice try and climb up to the counters now! Ha! 

The Nightmares of an Insomniac

After seeing a movie and going for late-night food at a diner, my roommates and myself decided to talk until after 2am and share fun things we had found on the internet. Because our lower-level cave is significantly cooler than the main floor, we all sat in a row on the futon in our basement living room. We were excitedly discussing cakes and frosting when we all saw a creepy, long-legged thing (literally) run across the floor in front of us. Following the shrill screams from me and Jackie, we pleaded with Morgan (the self-appointed and fearless live-in spider killer) to kill it. Her complacency toward the situation just made things worse. Probably due to my ghost-white complexion and look of sheer terror, Morgan eventually caved and went hunting with my tennis shoe. But, to no avail. The creature sufficiently hid itself underneath our plethora of DVD's.

It took Jackie a while to calm me down. It helped to know that while venomous, these nasty creatures commonly called the House Centipede cannot penetrate human skin and primarily hunt spiders and other pesky insects. And they only come out at night. But it didn't help make me less paranoid. Jackie continued to spout the virtues of this insect until she ascended the stairs to go to bed and leave me in the basement, alone, with the hidden creature. I talked myself down off of my irrational cliff as I walked into my bathroom until I switched on the light and saw a big, black spider perched right in front of the toilet. That's when I realized that my irrational fear was in fact rational: bugs (both malignant and benign) are everywhere. 

So, here I am, after 3am, sitting on my bed, paranoid that I will see another creature of abnormal speed and proportions (for the record, I did kill the spider in the bathroom, thanks to the emotional support and encouragement from Jackie). How can I have creepy-crawly nightmares when I have yet to fall asleep?? And how can I fall asleep when I am having creepy-crawly nightmares?? I feel this is a vicious cycle. Moral of the story is that no matter how much I love talking to my wonderful roommates, I have to be in bed before midnight so I don't witness the nocturnal creepy-crawling of creatures doing their nightly rounds. 

*PS, I thought about attaching a photo of the bug I saw, but that meant that I would have to look at one, and I wasn't about to put myself through that kind of stress again right now. But if you are really that curious, just Google "House Centipede," and make sure you do it long before bedtime!

On a lighter note, one of the discoveries we made before getting interrupted by bugs is that Costco.com is selling a one-of-a-kind, internally flawless, clearly colorless, 6.2 carat diamond solitaire for 1 million dollars. Say What??!?!?? Yeah, that's right. (For those unfamiliar with this talk, I'm pretty sure a 6 carat stone would be much bigger than my finger!!) Talk about a rock!!! The (un)lucky recipient of that ring will have to do arm workouts for months before preparing her hand to flaunt that chunk of ice. Check out the crazy ring here. But good news; you'd save half a million dollars by buying it through Costco!