Yesterday I was telling a friend that I will be blogging about 'this' as soon as I feel better ~ which is NOT today. Oh heck, let's blog about it today. Let's try to see some humor in a very humorless situation, if there is any. Let's talk about it now, and then see what tomorrow brings.
A month ago I moved into a retirement community. I've lived for years and years outside of town ~ not far, but far enough. I'm right in town now, less than a mile from the main highway and Walmart! My good friend is a surgeon, who is committed to a healthy lifestyle. He eats organic food and works out every day, no matter what his grueling schedule is, even if he has to sacrifice sleep time to do it. He's very serious about all of it, and I've never heard him joke about 'fast food,' especially with someone whose body is no laughing matter. When I told him where I was moving, he said, "Hey, you could walk to Taco Bell!" I said, "That's what I'm talking about here!" And there I moved.
Our apartments and townhouses are surrounded and protected by the beautiful, unspoiled forests in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We have dense woods and a lovely creek. We have deer and fawn (who ate someone's roses recently and got shooed away). We've seen fox and badger. People have seen bear. I have mice.
I've lived in rural settings all my life and have had my share of troublesome and uncomfortable situations. I know what lives in the woods (right outside the back door), and I know what to expect when I go into their domain. What might be happening 20 feet from my back door is very different than what's acceptable inside that door.
I was here almost a week, when I got up early one morning. It was dark inside and I made my way to the bathroom by the light of the silvery night lights. I caught a glimpse of the furry intruder as his eyes hit the light he scurried in front of. I clapped my hands, and I'm not sure why. We weren't outside, where he had a vast space to run. I think it was an instinctual run-but-not-by-me response.
Very well. I had a mouse. To be fair, I had just moved in and left the front and back doors open for most of moving day. I live on ground floor (and I mean ground floor - wheelchair accessible). The woods are ten feet away from my back sliding door. I totally accepted this momentary problem.
I called maintenance, and they came immediately and set seven traps in my little apartment. Two were traditional snap traps, and five were sticky traps. They were close to walls and corners, as mice have poor eyesight (I THINK, but at this point, what do I really know about mice?). I didn't like that moment in time, but I understood it. No big deal. Silly old me.
I watched and waited for three full days. On the morning of the fourth day ~ TWO mice in traps. Eeeeeeeekkkkkk! A mouse and his mistress! I had only seen one, and my mind could only accept one, but there they were. I knew exactly when it happened. I heard a SNAP! drag, click click click for almost a minute, before he gave up the good fight. I laid in my bed in the dark and thought ... that was disgusting, but now it's over. Yay me! My house - my rules. I have that no mice in the house rule.
Within a half hour, I heard a shrill shriek, then short bursts of shrieking. Lord have mercy ~ it was hideous. My friend Jen was right. (Sometimes) when a mouse in caught in a sticky trap in just the right way, they will scream. Had she not told me that, heaven only knows what I would have done in the pitch black. I would have had no idea what in the heck that was. It was in a corner of the bedroom, in the trap hiding between the dresser and the wall. I don't usually get up at 4am, but I did on that day.
Maintenance came and took the two traps away as soon as they came to work at 7. Until then, I sat shivering and quivering, wondering where they had been, what they had been eating, and how they had avoided seven traps for almost four days. It's spooky to think they're smarter than you are. We all thought that was that, but we left the other traps hiding along baseboards, just in case.
Two more days went by, and I was happy to report the emptiness of the traps to the crew of maintenance men and young guys who work the grounds every day. Thumbs up as I passed them on my walk, told them that all was good. My new diversion was a subtle smell of garbage as I walked into my place from outside. I knew it wasn't garbage, as I took each little bag of garbage to the main dumpsters on the property. It wasn't dirty laundry molding in the broiling heat either, as that was all caught up. All the food was safely tucked away. Hmmm ...
I took a bucket of soapy bleach water around with me one day, washing down everything I could reach. Who knows what those dastardly little creatures had touched. I washed and wiped and changed my water and washed some more. I've never had nice manicured hands and nails. I just plunge my hands into the bleach water and clean what needs to be cleaned. I could still smell that odor at the end of the day, especially around the laundry room (which is immediately to the right as you walk in the front door, in spite of the bleach wash.
I read my devotionals in bed and settled in for the night, content with a good day of work, yet still bewildered. Why did it have to hit me at night and get me all upset? I suddenly remembered one trap that I had forgotten about. I had been standing behind a young maintenance guy, at the doorway of the laundry room. He's about six feet tall, blonde curly hair, with a sweet face that a grandmother like me could just pinch. I was hiding behind him as he whispered, "I think I hear something in here." I gently pushed him and said, "Well then get in there and see what it is!" He tucked the last sticky trap behind the hot water heater. I bet myself a hundred dollars that that was the smell. Sometimes I hate it when I'm right.
That might have been the very first mouse I caught, as there he lay, rotting in the heat. I could only bear to look at him for a brief second with the flashlight. I called the emergency number for maintenance, and they came. I sat on the porch weeping. I told the maintenance man that I couldn't live here. He assured me that they would get to the bottom of it, and to please allow them time to 'fix it.' He told me honestly that there was only one other place, another townhouse on ground floor, that had a mouse problem. There were no others in 150 units on the property. I was brave when there was only one. What were the chances of THREE mice sneaking in on moving day? I had a bad feeling that the problem was bigger than that.
My disabled daughter came the next morning. She lives in a group home about 1 1/2 hours away from me. She comes every other week and stays for two days, and then goes back to her group home. She is totally dependent, and my angel. I enjoyed a brief two days of different emotions. Fear was replaced with protectiveness. I thought ~ if there's any mice left in this place, it would serve them well to surrender and jump into one of the traps right now. If I see one, I was prepared to catch it in my bare hands and WHAMMO! I thought ~ if you're smart, you'll flee to the woods and tell your little friends what horrible things are going on in 685! Mouse beware.
I enjoyed an eventless visit with my baby, thankfully. Why I can't adopt that brave attitude all the time is a mystery to me. Once she left, I was fearful and creeped out once again. I bought a bag of mothballs and lined up a booby trap barricade outside and inside both doors. There were no sweet, romantic, womanly smells in my house at that point. Nosiree. Moth balls. I felt that it would be worth it if it worked.
My friends Jill and Jeff came to visit and hook up the printer to my computer. I told them all about my mouse adventures. Jeff told me his 'mouse story.' He was a young, single college guy. He played in a band and led a rowdy life. He ate pizza one night and dropped into bed, with his beard full of pizza. He said that he kept waving his hands in front of his face as he drifted in and out of sleep, thinking a moth was flying around him. UGGGHHHHH! You KNOW what I'm going to say here, don't you? He finally whacked it hard as he was waking up, and realized that it wasn't a moth. There was a mouse, spinning silly on the floor where he had landed, that had been eating pizza out of his beard.
I almost fainted. I told him that he had just dispelled every 'myth' I had about mice being too afraid to deliberately come near humans. The bed was no longer a safe haven. My bed ~ that sits on the floor with no bed frame, so that I can get my disabled child in and out without having to lift her, was no longer safe. I went to pieces. Jeff said, "Well he didn't bite me!" WHO CARES, I wailed! That's NOT the point! It's like saying a snake is okay because it isn't poisonous. I'm glad it's not poisonous and I won't die from a bite, but a snake is a snake is a snake. A mouse eating pizza off your face is a mouse eating pizza off your face. It's incomprehensible. Jeff didn't get my hysteria. He's such a Yooper guy! And then Jill told me a few days later at church, that she forgot to bring me her favorite book ~ Of Mice and Men. You can't NOT be in a good mood when you're around people like them. They're such crack-ups. Thanks for inspiring the title of this blog, Jill.
I put moth balls between my mattress and box spring, and on the four corners on the floor. I have a new dustmop in my bed, that I slap around whenever I toss and turn during the night. I've had a lot of headaches in the past couple weeks. I'm not sure if it's from the heat, or from lack of sleep. I've been driving myself crazy with the scenarios of how all of these mice could have gotten in on moving day, versus their coming in on a regular basis. This brings me to yesterday morning, when yet another mouse had succumbed to death-by-sticky-trap.
For a second I saw the black spot. You know the one ~ the one that you see before you faint. Alright, this is it! No more Ms. Nice Lady. If I ever felt a pang of I-should-be-catching-these-in-humane-traps-and-setting-them-free-in-the-woods notion, it no longer applied. This is war. They have the most fabulous, dense, lush woods in all the world to make homes in. God has provided them with their own food sources. They have holes in the ground and knots in trees and hollow logs to inhabit. They don't belong in anybody's house.
I spent $17 for two of those sonic sound rodent repellants that you plug in. They're supposed to give off a sound that mice hate. I have drawn the battle lines of moth balls inside and outside the doors, and around my bed. If you're going to press your luck, you're going to die. I told my daughter Autumn that I'm thinking about mounting their little heads to display in my log dollhouse.
I have written stories and drawn pictures of wee little people, fairies and critters (including mice) that live in the forest, since I was a little girl. They lived in the hollows and roots of trees, and made darling homes for their families. They covered their babies up with tiny patchwork quilts that they made from scavenged, disgarded fabrics and clothing. Nobody was happier than I was when the original 'Gnomes' book came out in the early 1970's. They were my people! They were the embodiment of all the whimsical little wee folk that I had invented since my childhood. They were darling and sweet and did good things, and never bothered people, for goodness' sake. I'm in the process of making a quilt at this very moment, from cotton squares picturing adorable mice and their precious homes in the woods. IN THE WOODS. It's cute IN THE WOODS. It is NOT cute or the slightest bit entertaining IN THE HOUSE. It would never, ever, ever be cute in bed, on your face. I can't bear to think about that one anymore.
Maintenance was called yet again. A professional extermination company came yesterday afternoon. The first place he went was to the laundry room. The pipes that go down into the ground from the water heater had some bigger holes around them. He thought they could be chew marks from mice coming up. Maintenance stuffed steel wool into every crack and crevice around the piping. I asked him if they could get through that anyway. He said, "Did you ever bite into tin foil?" I said yes I had, as a child. I cringed. He said, "Yes ~ and you still remember that sensation. That's what it's like for mice to try to chew through steel wool."
The exterminator looked at all the corners of my modest apartment. He saw no signs of cracks or chewing in the molding, and no other obvious way of coming and going. He put down squares of delicious mouse poison. He told me that it's very effective, but the only drawback is that the mouse can fall and die anywhere. I'll take my chances. Now we play the waiting game. I hate the waiting game.
Anyone coming into my house today, without explanation, would assume I have some serious ritualistic compulsions. I have lines of moth balls here and there. There's a dust mop in my bed. I shake my shoes and slippers out before putting them on. I walk with my miniature led flashlight, scanning it in corners and under things as I move about.
I remember when I lived in Skandia, about twelve miles from town. I had an old farmhouse that my dad built an addition onto. I took my daily walk down the same two roads behind my property. I had a problem with a loose dog following me on my walks, and hanging around my yard until he ran off. He was probably a husky mix, and friendly enough, but bothersome. Even in the country, I don't believe dogs should be running loose, if they tend to follow people.
One day he trotted along beside me for the hour that I walked. My dad was in my yard working, as I got home. He said, "Where did you get the dog?" I proceeded to tell him how annoying the dog was, and how many times he just assumed he could walk with me and hang around my house for the rest of the afternoon. I was being so shortsighted and just plain mean. I hate it when I do that.
My dad said that the dog was 'friendly enough,' and I agreed. I never fed him, but he liked to walk with me and pretend he was mine. We stood there talking, in front of a pile of old wood siding that my dad had pulled off the house. All of a sudden the dog plunged into the pile of wood, and came out with a mouse in his mouth. He dropped it on the ground, and within seconds had stomped on it and tossed it around with his nose. He picked it back up again, pranced over to the porch and dropped it at the door. He came back and sat by my side, waiting for me to pet him. I had an epiphany. "I'll keep the dog!" I announced to my dad, who laughed and petted the dog, and told him how great he was. We aren't allowed to have any pets here in the retirement community, but boy do I wish I had that dog. His owner came driving slowly down the road, looking for him, and I never saw him again.
I don't know how long it will take before things feel normal and comfortable around here, and it truly feels like home. I don't have peace yet. I don't feel like the queen of my kingdom. I haven't been able to close the door and know that I'm safe and all is well here. Not yet.
I hope to look back on this sometime and think ... wow, I haven't thought about that for awhile now. I want to enjoy the creations in my head of the little people and animals that were such a part of my imagination in my childhood. I've collected gnomes and fairies and natural things for fifty years now. The mice and critters in my stories meant no harm, and had redeeming, social characteristics and noble intentions. I prefer to see them that way.
Almost fifty years ago, in a Catholic school in suburb of Detroit, my two best friends and I would gather natural things and make little wee folk houses by the 'swamp.' There was a small swamp at the bottom of the playground hill at our school, which enhanced our vivid imaginations. We gathered small stones, sticks, ferns, acorns, leaves and tiny twigs to make our houses. We wanted a place for our tiny forest friends to sleep at night. One time I brought some dry wall putty that my dad gave me from a house building project. I was so disappointed that it had dried out in my plastic container by the time I got it to the school. We just used it as a big lump of something in our creations. Little did we know that many decades later, it would be quite popular all over that area to make enchanting 'fairy houses,' that people would take tours of. I'm certain that it all started with Ann, Charlene and myself.
There was an enormous tree at the edge of the swamp, full of crazy marks. I'd have to see it today, all these years later, to make sense of what I thought we saw. We could only assume that there was a monster in the swamp. There were deep holes in the bark of the tree, in the shape of claws. Big claws. I'm not kidding about this. Either there was something ethereal living close by, or someone made those marks up and down the tree with a tool, just to try to scare the crap out of somebody.
We moved to the Upper Peninsula when I was twelve. I left behind my two best friends, the swamp and the miniature houses we built, but I took my fascination and imagination with me. I've kept it alive all these years, by indulging myself in gnome and fairy folklore, and filling my hollow log dollhouse with furnishings I've fashioned from clay that you bake. For whatever reason, the mouse I saw in front of the nightlight and the dead mice in the traps, don't look anything like the lovable creatures I've built houses for and made patchwork quilts for, from squares smaller than postage stamps. Reality is overrated.
I will just have to let time pass, and see where this story goes. Perhaps I should make an inviting, woodsy home especially for mice. Of course it will be deep in the woods, where they belong, far from our apartments and townhouses. I'm perfectly fine seeing them there, instead of in traps in the dark corners of my apartment. I'll get right on that today, and it will be even more fun than it was fifty years ago, with Ann and Charlene. I now have five grandchildren, and another joining our family in November. I think I'll call them right now.
Have a most wonderful day. God bless you with all good things.
Yours truly Tia
