Mouse House: Update

Things usually get worse before they get better.  That is what they say.  And this saying has certainly rung true around our house lately!  Paul and I have been dreaming of taking a vacation.  A real life vacation.  One where we leave Chloe with her grandparents and travel to an island somewhere where the pina coladas are frozen and endless; however, when I got to thinking about leaving Chloe for a week my heart sunk.  I realized that I would probably enjoy the first two or three days.  Imagine being able to sleep in past 6:00 a.m.?!  But then I quickly realized that I would be devastated for the remainder of the trip.  We decided to look into a trip to Florida instead.  We could bring Chloe and rent a house and just relax on the beach as a family.  We realized that this option was probably going to cost just as much as a trip to the Caribbean, and it would mean prolonging our plans to remodel the basement.  The trip was still under consideration until a family of mice decided they too would take a vacation... in our house. 

This year, instead of taking a vacation, we will be remodeling our basement.  It turns out that the trail of mouse shit and piss runs the entire length of our basement acoustical tile ceiling from the enclosed front porch to our oven.  And it doesn't stop there.  Yesterday, Paul noticed that the bottom of our oven was covered in a thick layer of... could it be?  No.  It can't be.  I won't let it be.  It was.  It definitely was.  It was charred mouse shit, which means that we have been smoking our food with mouse shit for God knows how long.  If you didn't just throw up a little in your mouth then you aren't human.  We also found a few pieces of Griffin's dog food, whose bowl lies within four feet of the bottom of the oven.  On their vacation, the mice feasted on all you can eat dog food while clubbing in our oven!!! 

We were dry heaving.  Livid.  We are so over these mice, we need a new word for over (wink, wink).  Words can't explain the anger you feel while you suck charred mouse poop from the bottom of your oven with a shop vac, and bleach every inch of everything in sight for the seventeenth time.  Finally, we ran the clean function on the oven.  Toward the end of the clean cycle the oven started shooting ash into the air, and before we knew it our entire first floor was covered in ash.  Mouse poop ash to be specific.  So I sent Paul and Chloe upstairs and vacuumed every single surface of our house, dusted, polished, disinfected every. inch. of. our. house. 

We have to decide whether or not we will be getting a new oven.  It can be very dangerous to have a mouse living in your oven according to my friend the Internet.  He says that he mice can chew through wires creating a fire hazard.  We are praying that we don't find any more surprises.  We are praying that the last step is to tear our the entire basement ceiling and start the remodel that we have been talking about ever since we moved into our house.  The Internet says if we don't pick up the mouse poop that the mice will want to come back, because they can't get enough of their own musty smell. 

Ever since we plugged up the hole in our foundation and plugged in the ultrasonic mouse repeller, we haven't caught any mice.  While I hate to even admit the number here because it is so incredibly disgusting, our total kill count is nine.  Nine mice, plus probably a few stuck to glue traps rotting in our walls.  It is amazing the things that you become an expert in throughout life.  Our new expertise is mouse extermination.  My advice to you is if you ever see a solitary mouse or mouse turd in your house, stop what you are doing.  Stop everything.  Examine your house from basement to attic.  Look through your pantry, your blankets, your appliances because you can bet - THERE IS MORE THAN ONE MOUSE!!!