New Roomate

Dear exterminator,

Get that thing out of my house, now!

The other day I arrived home after a long day of work and school and went straight to my kitchen to prepare dinner. Upon grabbing the bread from the refrigerator to prepare a first class meal of toast and peanut butter, I was greeted by a dark gray mouse. He was hiding behind the toaster and ran across the window sill, behind the dishes, and underneath a towel lying on the far counter. To say the least, I freaked out!!!! Now I wasn't as bad as my mother who upon seeing a mouse in her house in the mid 90s stood on the top of the couch and screamed for what seemed like 3 hours. But it definitely got my heart racing. And instead of cornering the mouse and finishing this silliness once and for all, I backed my way out of the room to calm down (I was afraid to turn my back on a 1 inch mouse in case he attacked me like a million pitbulls fighting for their last meal). After catching my breath I realized this might potentially be my end. I was the only one in the house. I went back armed with my running shoes on and the longest broom I could find. I approached the dish towel in which the mouse had ran under five minutes previous and wIth one epic blow struck the towel and sent it floating to the floor, with no mouse. The mouse had somehow escaped to a new hiding place, and I had a strange feeling he was just waiting to attack. So I ran back into the other room to call everyone I knew. Being alone I needed consoling.

After everyone on the phone laughed at my hysterics of finding a small field mouse, I decided to turn towards a real sense of comfort... the internet. I was searching for solutions on how to get rid of this vermin that was destroying the basic foundations of my emotional life. For all I knew he could be carrying the black plague, and I would lie dead in my house for weeks spurring the downfall of humanity. I needed solutions and I needed them fast.

Some of the solutions I wanted to use were not economically or environmentally feasible, like putting my entire neighborhood inside one of those tents and fumigating until all things that ever moved were dead. I started searching for homemade solutions. The best and most humane solution was a trick to place a toilet paper roll on the edge of a counter with peanut butter inside. You then place a trash can under the toilet paper roll and wait for your mouse to climb inside and topple into the trash can. After a few sleepless nights of coexisting with George (I named him George), I decide enough is enough. I put up the trap and waited to take the trash out.

I went to bed hoping all would go well and I could go upon living a normal life free of utter terror. But.... when I woke up in the morning the toilet paper roll had been pushed back onto the counter and the peanut butter that I placed within the roll was all but eaten. George had gotten the better of me. After 15 more variations similar to this I realized I was just feeding George and that if this went on he might reproduce and I would have many Georges running around creating the downfall of human existence.

After my failure to capture George the humane way, I have resorted to several different tactics. First I called my landlord who claims his solution will be poison. But I dont want poison because if George dies in some vent, he will begin to smell and attract insects, snakes, rodents, bears, and other animals that are attracted to smells. But I dont have to worry so much about this, because my landlord seems to be the kind of guy that gets to problems when he damn well feels like it. And when I called him he didnt seem as if he felt like it.

So my next solution was to rid the place of all food on the counters, lower drawers and cabinets. If I just keep my place really clean George will get the picture that the free buffet is over and he will move on to terrorize some other household. I have been doing this well for almost a week and still I see mouse dropping everywhere, which means he's feeding off some food source I know nothing about. So what do I do? Im thinking about buying actual traps but this seems expensive and unnecessary. I don't really want to kill the little guy I just want him to leave and never come back. But maybe death is his only option, he has driven me to complete paranoia. Every few minutes I hear a little rustling somewhere within the house and I go out armed with my broom that is now always at my side, and poke at everything that could be a potential hiding spot.

Everything that happens in my house is now blamed on George. My oven is reading that a "connection failure occured", the lights sometimes flicker, and the dryer didnt dry my clothes properly. All of these things are George, and he is causing me to not sleep. I dont even leave the house anymore in hopes I might catch him. I now have dark circles under my eyes and walk like a hermit everywhere I go. And yet, somehow he still evades me. Every scratch that I have on my skin and every sound that is louder than a pin drop is attributed to my furry friend. One of us has to go, and it might just be me.

Ok well in reality its going to be George, but please this insanity needs to end. I was once an intelligent dignified person, but anymore if you were to look there is no difference between me and the crazy man that sleeps outside of my house. Who knows maybe George torments him as well.

I relate my experience with the scene from Annie Hall in which Woody Allen goes to kill a spider armed with a tennis racket and copy of the national review, he comes out of the bathroom completely and utterly defenseless, complaining how its the size of a Buick.

The utter insanity, what am I to do!

Readers if you have ever experienced a mouse problem please tell me your story, and what you did to solve it.