A nonny mouse
I like mice.
As a nipper I used to keep pet white ones in a little cage. One of my weekly chores was to walk down to the local butcher who used to give me a large bag of sawdust from the sacks he kept to spread on the floor. It’s a long time since I saw sawdust on a floor…
Anyhows, we have a new pet. Or two. Or maybe more.
I first came across one when I went to make a cuppa, and found him sitting, bold as brass, behind the tea caddy. He looked at me and I look at him, before he scuttled away under the gas fire. He was a lovely little fella [I assume it was a he as I’m no expert at sexing mice at a distance]. The main thing that struck me was his size – he was tiny. I would guess about an inch and a half not counting the tail.
Mein Führer unfortunately got to hear about my new friend and demanded that I put down a trap. Herself can be quite cruel sometimes, as I can personally testify. So orders is orders and I set a trap.
I caught him that night. He was unharmed as the snap part had gone clean over his head and had caught the end of his tail. He was unhurt by the looks of him, but a bit pissed off at having a fucking trap attached to him. I let him loose in the garden.
Yesterday Penny got all curious. She started staring at a corner of the room but was too lazy of course to actually get up and go over to investigate. I went instead and there was another mouse under the radiator. This one was even smaller at around an inch. Without personal introductions [he wasn’t very talkative] I can only assume he’s a field mouse.
Penny has been on duty ever since. She lies on the couch keeping a keen eye out for movement and has even dragged herself to her feet once or twice. To encourage more exercise and activity I have promoted her to Mousewatcher-in-Chief, but she has strict instructions not to harm.
I have seen him a couple of times this morning just out of the corner of my eye. He’s more like a fleeting silent shadow than a mouse and he’s doing me no harm so long may he live. There are no signs of incontinence or damage to food so why should I hold a grudge?
I haven’t told Herself.
This is one little friendship I’m keeping to myself.
Grandad,
You ever tried one of these? My little under floor buddies seem to have moved on since I started using something similar to this.
https://www.primrose.co.uk/pestbye-advanced-rat-and-mouse-repeller-whole-house-p-36.html
I have. Several variations as I kept mislaying them. None seemed to have any affect whatsoever except to cause the daughter to moan about the high pitched whistle. Maybe she’s a rodent?
*Meine Führerin*. You could furtively trap the craytur alive and donate to a pet shop. Apodemus sylvaticus would be a lovely birthday present, but rattus rattus is a no no.
If I could be bothered to catch it alive I would gently let it free some distance from the house.
And don’t talk to me about rattus rattus! I had one of those fuckers a couple of years ago. Did untold damage to the house. I even had to rip up a solid wood floor as the little [?] shit had chewed through a central heating pipe underneath.
Rattus rattus could chew through the tall brass neck of a shifty politician. I wish the lab scientists would kidnap a few of them and carry out experiments. We would then have enlightening New Research Findings for the pol corrs to write about.
If you thinks rats is bad, try squirrels! Nasty gnawing things – they love stripping the insulation off wiring but don’t seem to electrocute themselves
I used to pull nightshifts guarding stuff. A sec man. One of the gigs was guarding millions upon millions of Dmarks worth of game consoles. Nintendsegatari had filled a warehouse full of their latest model ready for Xmas. 12 hours a night I sat there to make sure no one broke in, drove up in a fleet of lorries with gangs of loading crews and emptied the place out. Like a lot of the jobs, i was just there to tick a box, an alibi for the insurance. So i sat 12 hours 7 nights a week, 27 days a month. I got real good at something called “Zelda & The Ocarina Of Time”- no i hadn’t known what an ‘ocarina’ was either. I also cataloged a friend’s VHS collection as no one minded if used one of the office TVs and VCRs. “Magnus, my specialist topic is 80s German PVC clad porn”.
One night I was sitting in the ‘canteen’, feet on the desk, smoking and watching something or the other when out of the corner of my eye I saw a ‘Maus’ come out from a hole in the plastic skirting board. He looked at me, i at him, and then i threw him a crumb of biscuit. He darted away of course as the centimetre of so of double backed dough hurtled towards him. But it landed just infront of his hole and later that night i got to see him edge out, sniff and then claim his prize. From then on , as far as I was concerned, we was friends. Around midnight most nights he’d come out and I’d throw him some morsel. He run off and then later, having worked up some courage, come back and snaffle the goods.
Then i started talking to him. That was point I realized I badly needed a change of career.
You didn’t y any chance call him Mr. Jingles?
No, “Mr.Mouse” . Oh the unoriginality that comes from prolonged exposure to Germans.
I’ve kept wild mice as pets, both the gray ones and the brown and white, caught in a “catch ’em live” tip trap. They did all right, even bred, but never got actually tame. Cute though, and amusing, especially with two or more in a wheel and one decides to stop running. And if you get fed up with them you can always release them again 😉
Many years ago we lived in an old house with its usual crowd of strangers. One night, sitting on the sofa, I noticed a small mouse amble leisurely in front. My terribly vicious cat, hero of many battles with rats and mice, sat on the sofa and completely ignored the intruder. Even trying to provoke a response did not work. A little later, we went away on holiday and, on return, found said mouse dead on the sofa- evidently from starvation. Do you think he saw the future and could not be bothered to intervene?