Friday, December 2, 2011

A Sticky Situation

I'm starting to wonder if strange rodent related problems only happen to me, or if people just don't talk about it. Yesterday morning I'm awoken to the sound of tiny thumping. Immediately I think of the glue trap under the bed. Yes, I bought a pack of glue traps to try and catch some of the brown recluse spiders we have in the house. For some reason we have quite the problem with them in our bedroom in the summer. I never thought we had mice in our bedroom. So anyways, I peek under the bed to find this mouse dragging the glue trap around by its tail. Only its tail was stuck. I jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen to get a container so I could catch him and get his tail out of the glue before he got his whole body stuck. Sadly by the time I got back to the bedroom he had firmly planted all four feet in the glue. I felt awful. Poor little thing was freaked out trying to get out. Darn glue traps, what was I thinking? I actually thought about donning oven mitts and trying to use rubbing alcohol to get his little feet unstuck. Yeah, that idea flew out the window when I saw how freaked out he was. So I did the only humane thing I could think of at the moment. I used tongs and picked up the trap, slid it into a empty Teddy Grahams box and popped it all in the freezer. I know, I know.....horrible. But I figured he would just go to sleep instead of sitting on that trap for days starving to death. This will haunt me for months I'm sure.

Ironically, after I'd put him in the freezer, I Googled "Mouse on a sticky trap" to find that there are several ways to remove a mouse from a glue trap. The most popular method is to place the trap with mouse in a lidded container and drizzle some vegetable oil on the trap. Apparently in a matter of minutes the mouse will be able to work itself free. The problem? You then have an oil covered mouse in a box. I couldn't exactly dump it outside in the 29 degree weather. Poor thing would have just turned into a popsicle anyways. I suppose I could have given him a nice bubble bath and blow dry before sending him on his way, but somehow I don't think that would have worked. So please learn from my mistakes, don't use glue traps. Oh and I'm never going to look at a box of Teddy Grahams the same again.

2 comments:

Granny Randi said...

OMG, you are hilarious! My pack rats moved every glue trap I placed in the great room under my bed...in a row! No pack rats were harmed in this process! They are crafty little rodents.

The Menagerie Momma said...

Hahaha Randi....looks like all the smart rodents are in New Mexico.