Little Mouse

We have a mouse problem.  Again.  Last time we ruthlessly killed the invaders and I still feel queasy about it.  Even though they pooped over every thing in sight and chewed through enough stuff that we trashed all our food.  So we rid ourselves of the whole family and the super stuffed any holes he could find.  That worked for while.  On the plus side, I finally learned why the phrase "build a better mousetrap" is apt.  Snap traps are the pinnacle of engineering.

But this time we're keeping them away with peppermint oil.  Problem is, the smell is strong but also fades fairly quickly.  So I'm getting grossed out by the stench of peppermint while also needing to keep dousing the kitchen surfaces. And I gave a bottle to our neighbors next door and now the mouse (mice?) has been driven back into our kitchen looking for food.  Everything we have is in the fridge or in glass jars, but to no avail.  Our new roommate even chewed through foil-covered vegetarian bullion cubes.  WTF?

Today Sasha and I had to clear out the nest.  Not a nest, really, more like a mouse toilet mixed with tiny wood chips.  We cleaned out underneath our kitchen sink and hunted for entry points.  Sasha was eager to find the holes and imagined an elaborate and pleasant post-apartment life for the mouse after we closed the holes.  (The mouse will see that the holes are blocked, then turn around and take the elevator down to the ground floor and then...)

Best and worst thing about a 3-and-3-quarters-year-old helping?  He can fit just about anywhere and is happy to crawl around somewhere novel.  Give him a flashlight and a sense of purpose, however, and he quickly invents other urgent tasks and purposes that get in the way of (Mom's) original task.  And then upon realizing he can't solve a single one of these terrible problems, he loses interest and asks to play with the iPad.