Monday Mystery

We are having a bit of a mouse problem lately. I need to restate that. We're having a terrible, horrible, huge mouse problem. Even if it's just one little mouse, that's a HUGE deal to me. I freak out. I become unhinged and unreasonable. I threaten Butch. I threaten to call the exterminators. I want someone to put a hundred traps under the house. I'm serious. A. Hundred.

Here's the mystery: how in the heck is this mouse avoiding the trap?

So here's how it all started. One evening, I opened the trash compactor and there was a mouse sitting there. I reacted like this: 1. I screamed really loud. 2. I slammed the compactor shut. 3. I compacted it. 4. Then I yelled at Butch---like he's the reason we have a mouse. Not fair at all, but that's how I roll. We wouldn't have this problem if there were a hundred traps under the house. I rest my case.

Now the fun begins. Butch puts peanut butter on the single trap he could find and put it under the sink. We think that's where they are getting in. I looked for droppings in the other cabinets and drawers. So far, they haven't gotten in there. I "bitched" to Butch that if they did, then HE was cleaning everything out. Because if we had a hund....you get the point.

The next day, the trap was sprung, but the mouse got away. Butch thought it was probably injured. We thought that was the end of it. That night, again, I saw a mouse in the compactor. I suggested he put the trap inside the compactor. The next morning, the peanut butter was gone, but the trap was not sprung. Somehow, that little bugger escaped. Butch put the trap back in that night. The next morning, the peanut butter wasn't touched. Butch said that instead they feasted on the brownies I had thrown away. Sheesh. This is taking way too long. I just want it/them gone!!

I talked to Butch last night and he said that once again, the mouse ate the peanut butter without setting off the trap. He's decided that there is too much "give" in the compactor. That hunt continues.

So, I met this girl at my scrapbook retreat. Let's call her Lisa (not her real name---okay, yes it's her real name but I didn't get her permission to post this---oh well). Anyway, as she was scrapbooking, she kept coming across cat food in her supplies. Yes, cat food. She decided that it had to be mice. Then, when she went in to a zippered pocket of her big scrapbook roller bag, she pulled out a zippered pocket binder type thing. It was full of cat food. Unbelievable. Those mice spent a lot of time moving cat food from the bowl, somehow get in the bag, inside a pocket and then inside of a zippered case. What??

I looked at it and could not see how it got in. There are no holes or chew marks.

 I wish I'd taken the picture before she dumped it. It was solid cat food along the spine.

Most of it has failed to the bottom of the trash.

Now I was really intrigued. I quizzed Lisa to get to the bottom of it. Her scrapbook stuff is stored in the basement. The cat food is in the basement. But here's the thing. The cat food is on the complete other side from where her scrapbook supplies are!!

It's a mystery for sure!