Since October, I have told everyone about the problem I have had with mice infesting my Connecticut apartment. So far I have caught four of them, when they fell into the large plastic bucket next to the stove. Now, surprisingly, it looks like there aren’t any more.
Over the past weekend, I baited the “trap” by dropping two peanuts into the bucket. Not long after that I heard something jumping in the bucket, but when I went to investigate, there was no mouse in the bucket. And one of the peanuts was missing, too. Later on, the other peanut disappeared the same way. Evidently I was dealing with a supermouse this time. Not only could it jump out of the bucket, something the other mice could not do, it was also strong enough to take a big Virginia peanut with it, shell and all.
When I replaced the bait on Monday, I propped the lid on one side of the bucket. I figured that if the opening was half covered and the mouse returned, unless it could aim where it jumped, the lid would keep it from getting out until I arrived and snapped the lid firmly on. However, nobody went for the peanuts. On Wednesday, I did another test, by dropping another peanut on the floor nearby. In the past, when I did that, the peanut was always gone within two or three hours, but as I write this, it’s still there.
According to the locals, it has been an unusually mild winter. We had temperatures in the 50s last Monday, and the forecast has it going to 56 degrees today; we have also had more rain than snow. Perhaps the supermouse went outside and never came back; an owl or a cat could have caught it. I’m crossing my fingers in the hope that my pest problem is over.
