Tag Archives: mouse droppings

Animal in the Wall, Mice

Mouse in Wall

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You know you have a mouse in the wall or something else running around inside your home when your dog spends the entire day staring at your wall and sniffing at the baseboards.  Either that, or your dog is just crazy.  But, I have a great dog, and I trust her.

At first, I didn’t notice anything odd.  Life is busy around here.  With three kids, a husband who works over 60 hours a week, and a part-time job, I have to admit I don’t take a lot of time paying attention to how my dog spends her days.  I was hurrying to get breakfast ready the other morning when my youngest said, “Mom, Daisy’s staring at the wall again.”

I was in such a hurry, and there were so many other things going on at the time that I just responded, “Hmmm, mmmm” as I rushed over to the stove to flip the frying eggs.  Unfortunately, I accidentally tipped over the juice container just then, too.  So, it wasn’t until after the eggs were on plates in front of everyone and the juice was cleaned up that my youngest piped up again.

“See, Mom?  Why is Daisy staring at the wall?”

I had no idea what she was talking about and turned to see what my German shepherd was doing.  True enough, she was pacing in front of the wall that separates the kitchen and living room, sniffing at the baseboards and whining every now and then.  Everyone stopped eating breakfast and chatting just to watch this strange behavior.  That’s right when my husband came down the stairs.  We must have been a sight.  His entire family was sitting silently, staring at the dog, who was in turn staring at the wall.  He stood there on the steps before bursting out laughing.

“What’s going on around here?” he laughed.  “We have a ghost or something?”

We all snapped out of it and breakfast resumed, although the talk was about what could possibly cause Daisy to act that way.  My children each told me they had seen Daisy doing this every now and then over the last few days, and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it until someone actually said something to me.

Finally, we all agreed we must have a mouse in the wall.  But, the morning was ticking on and everyone needed to get to school or work, so we finished up and I sent everyone out the door.  I turned to look at Daisy in my kitchen and sighed.  I had about an hour before I needed to be at work, and I knew I had to spend that time making sure we didn’t have a mouse infestation and doing something about the mouse in the wall.

Reluctantly, I opened up the pantry, and started pulling everything out, inspecting it as I did so.  I spotted a couple of tiny mouse droppings, that looked a little bit like grains of dark rice, on the floor, but our food seemed fine.  I mostly keep everything in jars, cans and plastic containers, so there wasn’t much that a mouse could get into.  One cereal box had a small hole chewed in the bottom and I tossed it, thankful that we’d been eating eggs for breakfast this week instead of cereal.  Fortunately, no mouse jumped out at me while I worked.

That job done, I called a rodent removal service to come out and inspect our property and get rid of the mouse in our wall.  I thought having a dog would protect my family from intruders, but apparently my Daisy protects us from mice, as well.  Good dog!

Mice

How to Get Rid of Mice

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how to get rid of mice
            My unintentional solution to how to get rid of mice would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so gross. 

            I’m not the kind of person to go squealing away or jumping up in chairs when I see something like a mouse, spider or snake.  But, when I noticed mouse droppings in my pantry, and little chew marks in some cardboard boxes, there was a serious “yuck factor.”  I couldn’t bear the thought of some little wild critter, infested with all kinds of parasites, peeing or pooping all over my counters, pantry and food.  Mice can spread all kinds of diseases, like salmonellosis,  Lyme disease, rickettsialpox, and many others.

            I donned gloves and a mask and attacked the pantry, searching through everything for any traces of mouse activity.  Cans were okay, as long as I washed them before I opened them.  Any boxes or bags that had chew marks were thrown away.  After a lot of work and sorting, I had a couple of garbage bags full of food that was either contaminated or possibly contaminated, and it made me angry to have to throw out that much food.  I knew how I’d get rid of the mice.  I washed my hands and made a phone call to a professional wildlife removal company.  Let them chase down and get rid of every mouse.  I have enough work on my hands with all this cleaning.

            I put on a new pair of gloves and a mask and worked to sanitize the shelves and floor.  Hey, I needed to clean out the pantry anyway, I thought to myself, trying to find the silver lining.  The kitchen countertops were full of the food I figured was okay.  I’d even found an old bottle of honey with just a little bit of honey in the bottom.  I’d put it upside-down in a juice glass to let the honey out. 

            As I finished sanitizing the pantry, I figured I would sweeten some tea with the honey and wait for the wildlife removal expert to arrive.  I turned to reach for the honey and that’s when I saw it.  One of the mice was bold enough to come out in the kitchen while I was working, attracted by the food set out on the counter.  Its tail got stuck in the honey that had leaked out into the juice glass, and it couldn’t run away.  It was the craziest thing!  Of course, its little paws couldn’t get enough purchase on the granite countertop for it to pull itself free, so there it sat.  Its tail looped up into glass, its nose quivering with the scent of all that food, every now and then trying to run, but with no luck. 

            As I said, it would have been hilarious, but I had just spent a long time cleaning up after it and throwing my food out.  My sense of humor was a little frayed, but I did appreciate the irony.  So did the guy who came out to get rid of the mice from my house.

Mice

Mouse Removal

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mouse removal
I’ve done a lot of mice removal in my job at pest control, and my favorite thing to do is train the new guy!  Most of our house calls end up pretty standard.  We just see the proof that mice have been there.  Tons and tons of mouse droppings.  Looks like little black grains of rice scattered all over, and the stuff can be pretty toxic if it’s not cleaned up right.  Usually, that’s all we see before we set up the traps, but every now and then, I get to see a grown man scream like a little girl.  It’s the best part of my job.

            We pulled up in front of the nice house.  It was this kid’s first day on the job.  We introduced ourselves to the homeowner, and she told us the standard story about spotting mouse droppings under the kitchen sink, right where she keeps the garbage.  She said she knew they had a mouse problem, but she called for mice removal the day she reached in to throw something away and a mouse jumped right over her hand. 

            She told us the story while laughing at herself.  She said she could handle most things like snakes and spiders, and she even likes pet mice.  But, have a wild one leap unexpectedly out of your garbage can and over your hand.  She laughed and admitted she didn’t handle that as well as she thought she would.  I think she said screaming was involved. 

            It was time to have the new kid look under the sink.  He needed to clean up the droppings and set the traps for mice removal, all while keeping an eye out for tiny holes that might be the “front door” for the mice.  He reached in to grab the garbage can and, wouldn’t ya know it, the can had two tiny little occupants that didn’t like being moved.  They jumped out at him, squeaking, and sent the kid tripping over himself backwards, screaming like a little girl.  Just another perk of the job!

            Of course, we caught those two mice for the nice lady, who’d quickly retreated to perch on a chair, cleaned up the droppings, set traps and plugged the hole we found.  I never let the kid live that one down, though!  We teased him about it for years.  I never did bother to tell him about the first time I’d had a mouse jump out at me, but no need to bring up the past, right?