h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The fiance (now Officially Known as Scrumph) and I got back from the Meet to find the resident mouse zipping about the kitchen. Or possibly a horde of mice, of which we saw the rear-guard, as the counter-tops are a mouse lavatory extravaganza. Kinda spoiled the warm glow gained by getting rained on in Hyde Park and having to have a wee drinkie or two or three or lots to assist the drying out process.

I have now made a humane mouse-trap from a baking tray, a roasting tin, a bamboo skewer, a toothpick, two pieces of sellotape and a piece of peanut-buttery bread. The previous trap consisted of a large glass jar with peanut-butter in the bottom and a ramp of cardboard up to the lip also dotted with peanut-butter to encourage mousy to fall in and not be able to get out. Mousy far to clever for us, ate the bait on the ramp and carefully did not fall into the jar. So we are trying a dead-fall trap. The plan is to frogmarch the mouse out to the local park and release him there, should he be tom-fool enough to trot under the roasting tin and dislodge the bamboo stick by nibbling at the bait. Knowing our luck he'll be a wee Moriarty and this saga will end with a life-or-death struggle on the lip of the bath-tub with the taps thundering away...

I'm impressed at the ingenuity of the mouse traps.

You could always get a cat.

Alas we live in rented accomodation or I'd have at least six cats, MV.

But hurrah! The trap worked! I went out for an hour and when I got back the roasting tin had fallen down. When I picked up the tray and tin ensemble I heard a wee muffled 'eek', so I got my keys and decided to take the little squeaker to the park. Alas, as I was crossing the yard I lost my grip on the tray and let a tiny gap appear. Moriarty-mouse zipped out like a greased soap-bar and shot into the toad-flax. He is probably as we speak knotting vines together so he can mountaineer back up the drain-pipe and to his lair behind the washing-machine.

Do you think he'll be dumb enough to fall for the same trap twice?

Same here, rented accom, we'd like some furballs too.

Mountaineer back ... I'd be interested to know if he does come back, sounds like he had it cushy behing the washing machine.

I have just realised that what I thought was burnt rice grains from yesterday's dinner sitting on the stove top... isn't.



Right. That does it. I am dedicating the rest of the afternoon to scrubbing every single thing in the kitchen to within an INCH of its life. With every single cleaning product I own. Twice. With gloves on.

By the way, the mouse ate some of the blu-tak that was securing the roasting tin to the baking tray while in captivity. What on earth for? It had a nice bit of bread and peanut-butter to be getting on with if it needed a comfort nibble.

Perhaps it was a protest at the sudden captivity, and thought right, I'm going to eat her blu-tac..that'll serve her right, and when I come back there won't be enough to catch me again..and if she does happen to find anymore, I now know what blu-tac tastes like so that I won't be caught again...

Toasted mice poo... Yuk, I'd come round and help you clean, but I don't think I can catch a flight that quick and I'm afraid that the pigeons might get all Alfred Hitchcock on me.

Right. I have now scrubbed the kitchen. From the quantity of poo unearthed in the 'hard to reach' corners like back of bin-cupboard under sink, there may well be more mice in hiding. I shall be setting the trap up again this evening.

I am totally on Tom's side at the moment. If Jerry were to trot into my house looking winsome and bigeyed righ now I'd frying-pan him myself.

Sorry shouldn't laugh really...at least you have a nice clean kitchen only thing is any dodgy looking black bits will have you freaking out and pulling the furniture and appliances out armed with gloves and spray bleach..

Once when I was younger we lived in a farmhouse and there was a grainstore next to the kitchen.

You guessed it.

Rats inevitably found their way in and ate all my Easter Eggs

That story did nothing to help your predicament...goodluck mouse hunting, or should I say no luck? That means then there isn't any left and your lil mouse that you caught was full of sh!t...

My dad always calls pigeons flying rats... Oooh, do you think there's a sort of conspiracy going on ...

I grew up on a farm and we had mice and rats in everything, and twelve very busy cats who used to occasionally make matters worse by bringing us the present of a live mouse so we could play catch too. My parents lost their tempers and put out poison for the mice - oh damnable mistake. Some of the mice crept back into the walls to die and pong. One poor stupid cat ate a poisoned mouse or three and also died. The dog found some poison and ate that and was sick, well, as a dog really.... Horrible. Our own pet version of the Valentine's Day Massacre and did nothing much for my parents' marriage neither. Hence the clever Blue Peter contraptions made out of toothpicks and roasting tins for me...

Darn it all to heck! There IS another mouse - we saw him skedaddle across the floor yesterday evening. I immediately set up the trap again and he hasn't even gone near it. Either he saw his fellow mouse disappear under the roasting tin and not come back again, or he is so full of toast-crumbs he just can't face any more food. Curses curses curses.

Good grief you may have to hire a cat..doesn't someone you know have a nice friendly furry lil tiger you can borrow?

Update on the mouse situation. They have returned. They lurk behind the washing-machine and giggle in high-pitched squeaky voices. They canter all over the kitchen area even while we are sat the other side of the room watching telly. The fiance found one in the toaster eating crumbs the other day (thereby completely spoiling my morning marmite session). It leaped back out and legged it under the fridge.

So, we went to the hardware shop and bought many humane 'no-kill' mousetraps. Now that we have dotted them about the kitchen, the mice have taken to lurking again and I haven't seen hide nor hair since the weekend. They are NOT being caught in the traps. I am beginning to be sorry now I didn't buy the 'humane killer' electric shock trap out of sheer rage and malice. But knowing our luck these mice are actually genetically modified like the Rats of Nimh and will dismantle the trap and wire it up to the fridge door...

Mouse has ignored the nice tasty traps baited with cheese and chocolate and peanut butter. Mouse has mountaineered into the top shelf of the cupboard (whose door is missing) and has chewed the edge of the bag of barley. Why does my mouse prefer plastic to cheese or chocolate or peanut butter?

Didn't the mouse chewing on the barley bag want the barley? The mice here chewed thru a plastic bag full of grass seed for kitty grass and ate all the grass seeds and left the chaff all over along with other things.

We've had mice off and on but they have recently become more brazen. Twice I've seen one running across the kitchen floor. One ran right in front of the dog from under a cabinet to under the sink. The was slow to react and not that interested in doing anything about it anyway. The has no interest whatsoever. I have traps with peanut butter in them that the mice ignore. I just gave up and got baits today. If I keep seeing the mice running across the kitchen I'll start having nightmares about them.

Scrumph, Conqueror of Bugs and Electronic Rodents, and Agapanthus, Warrior, er, Person, mightily strove to move the Sacred Fridge, and verily they laboured to clean the Unholy Mess there-behind, and found not the Portal. Then they ventured beyond the far outpost of Sofa in Spare Room, and yea verily they hoovered some more, and found not the Portal. At last, after many months on their long and tiring quest, they found the Secret Entrance to Mouseland behind the Vasty Washing Machine. So they returned briefly to the Outer Worlds and Purchased a Mighty Magic (something extrememly toxic and scary in a spray can that promised to fill 'really BIG gaps') and in a secret ritual passed from Hero Father to Hero Son, Scrumph the Valient plugged the Secret Entrance with quick-drying expanding foam. Chew through that, you b******.

So perhaps the Saga of the Rodent, also known as The Summer of Mice, is finally over and we can go back to leaving the bread-board out on the counter all night with impunity.

Deep in the Walls of House, the banished Mouse Demons wait. Over the months they plan and plot, longing for the day when the Closed Portal is finally re-opened and they can RETURN!