Dirty word! Ugly Word! Dirty Word! Another Post Not for the Fainthearted

I HATE MICE.  hate. them. I have mice.  I told you I would tell you anything.  I am ashamed, freaked out, disgusted but yes, I have mice.   Back when I first saw the evidence in October I was hoping it was just one.  Ha ha ha ha ha. Nope.  The dadgum-uglyword-dirtyword-uglyword mouse problem just is driving me insane. Wed. night my grandsons were going to spend the night with me.  They have a room here at my house.  The door remains shut and no one goes in that room except for maybe the couple of times a month they get to come visit. I knew I had a mouse again because when the boys and I got home Wed. I went in the their mom's old room and I found evidence of mice (poop).   I thought I had gotten rid of all the mice a few weeks ago.  Disgusting Disgusting Disgusting so I showed my 9 & 11 yr old grandsons what mouse poop looks like and asked if they had seen anything like that in their room when they just went in there. Nope.  Whew. We were all relieved, still grossed out, but relieved that no mouse evidence was in their room. Then a few hours later the younger one goes in his room, turns on the light to get something and sees the dadgum-uglyword-dirtyword-uglyword mouse.  Bless his heart.  He turns off the light, shuts the door, comes and tells me that maybe he saw the mouse dart under his bed, and me who will always believe anything they tell me, runs to the room, opens the door, turn the light on and see the dadgum-uglyword-dirtyword-uglyword mouse dart out from under his bed to the closet.  I shrieked and my grandsons and I got really freaked out. My girl dogs got freaked out as well.  They couldn't have seen the mouse but I guess me shrieking was enough.  I called my daughter and when she got off work that night at 10 p.m. (she works at the city's largest grocery store and it was Thanksgiving eve) she drove the 20 minutes out here to pick them up.  My youngest grandson told me he would never be able to sleep in that room again.  I told him I will never be able to sleep IN THIS HOUSE ever again.  I had some mousetraps (at the first sign of mouse poop in Oct. I bought a couple of pkgs) so I set 3 in that room with a smear of peanut butter and a tiny bit of dry dogfood. I stayed awake until midnight just very upset that my grandsons didn't get to spend the night, upset that I bought this house, upset that I have been fighting the mice problem for 2 months now, that I am the only one that lives here thus I have to clean up the mouse poop, had to be the one to dispose of the 3 or 4 mice I have caught so far, worry over mice-carried disease, clean, disinfect, fret, worry, wonder how the heck they get inside, upset that .... well, anything anyone could be upset over I thought about it, mice, all the way to world hunger, war & absence of world peace.  Somehow, I DID manage to go to sleep in this house because I slept from about midnight until NOON on Thanksgiving. (I wasn't going to my son's home for Thanksgiving until 5-ish).  Obviously all that worrying was exhausting.  After I got up I immediately thought of .... and what I needed to go dispose of.  What a way to start the day.  I did catch 2 mice.  OH YUCK -- two of them.  The really bad news?  I mean the really bad news?  They were not the one my grandson and I saw.  We saw an adult, these two were small.  OH cr*p, I have a family.  I am growing my own.  Visions of sugarplums do not dance in my head, visions of millions of mice dance in my head.  I am sick, disgusted, grossed out, stressed, depressed, did I mention disGUSTED?  I want to run away from home.  Really.  I want to just shut the door, load the dogs in the car, and drive away.  Instead, I do what I have to do.  Set more traps.  The one trap that didn't have a mouse in it in that room? I could have sworn I put a bit of dog food and peanut butter on that one but don't see it now, but I am kind of scatterbrained and maybe I didn't bait it, so I took it and a couple more, baited with peanut butter and dog food bits and put them in that room to catch the parent mouse.  I went to my son's home and had a wonderful Thanksgiving evening, but I had to come home.  Before I got ready for bed I checked the dadgum-dirty-word traps. No dog food, no trace of peanut butter, no dead mice.  Obviously I have talented mice and lousy mouse traps.   Last night I really could not sleep in this house.  I tried to go to sleep but I just lay there, wide awake, fretting so finally at 3 or 4 a.m. I just got up and got on the internet.  Somewhere around 5 or 6 a.m. I got so exhausted I fell sleep.  The dogs woke me up around 10 a.m.  (yes, being retired is wonderful, I can sleep whenever I want can)  So today is Black Friday, busiest shopping day of the year.  I am not going to Wal-Mart or the mall until January, at the earliest.  I will have to go to Target at the end of December to pick up a prescription but otherwise, I'm not getting out and among that many people.  Sure not going out on Black Friday.  Ok, fine.  Get up, around and finally make myself face the music and go in that room to retrieve and dispose of the hopefully dead parent mouse.  Tell myself she is the last one in the house.  (do NOT burst my bubble)  Open the door and ... no dead mouse.  Empty traps, no dog food, no trace of peanut butter, no dead mice.  I tell myself that I did not see a bigger mouse the other day, it was just one of those little ones I already caught.  No, those dadgum stupid traps have no trace of dog food or peanut butter.  The dadgum uglyword-dirtyword-uglyword mouse cleaned them up.  The dadgum stupid traps obviously do not work as expected.  I expected them to trap the mouse, not serve as a serving dish.  I threw them in the trash (they didn't even snap when I threw them away. Stupid traps)  So what do I do?  Call my younger daughter and ask her to go with me ... on Black Friday morning ... to Wal-Mart.  Yes.  I did.  I went to Wal-Mart.  The truth is it was not bad, not any worse than any other day really.  I guess everyone was at the mall.  Fine.  We finally found the mouse trap location in the store.  There are 3 display boxes for mouse traps and only one pkg of traps.  I guess it isn't just my house because someone bought all those pkgs.  I got that one pkg, totally in disbelief that I went to Wal-Mart on black Friday and they only had one pkg of mouse traps.  I want tons.  I want every single dadgum uglyword dirtyword uglyword mouse out of my house.  Every.single.one.  I think I need more than one pkg of mouse traps. So, we go to Home Depot.  They have lots of mouse traps.  And by the way, Santa was there.  Not a kid in sight, but Santa was sitting right there in Home Depot waiting for some kids to come by.  OK, fine.  I come home .... get the new different brand traps baited with peanut butter and dog food and place TEN in my grandson's bedroom and SIX in my daughter's old room (thank goodness the only two places I have seen mouse poop this go round).  That was many hours ago.  I just went to made myself go to my grandson's room.  Opened the door, turned on the light and saw the dadgum uglyword-dirtyword-uglyword mouse dart out from under the bed, around the traps and back to the closet.  I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SLEEP IN THIS HOUSE AGAIN. Seriously thinking of taking the dogs and sleeping in the car.  It is a toss up.  The weatherman says it is going to be very cold tonight.  I want to run away from home.  I want my mommy.  I want a different house, not a single wide trailer, in a different neighborhood, totally mouseproofed.  I want a good night sleep.  I want to not be here.  Oh, and my girl dogs? That got freaked out when I got freaked out and shrieked?  While trying to bait and fix the dadgum dirty word ugly word traps it takes me numerous times.  These new ones seem to be better and very sensitive.  While I was trying to get them fixed they went off several times each, getting my fingers, me shrieking, them loudly snapping and scaring my poor girl dogs to death.  Zoe hid between the tv and a big plant for an hour and I could not find the little one, Gracie.  I called and called and called and looked and looked and finally I found the poor little thing, cowering in the bathroom.  I found her in the tiny space between the toilet and the tub ---honest to goodness---shivering behind the shower curtain!!!!  And that is the truth!  I finally realized she was there because the shower curtain was poofed out and quivering (and these are my "guard dogs"?)  Max was asleep in his favorite doggy bed.  And my daughter?  Bless her heart, she has to deal with agoraphobia too and it really stresses both of us to have to go into crowds of people but she went to Wal-Mart with me but when I told her I wanted LOTS of mousetraps she had an idea.... she said can't you just re-use mouse traps?  I told her I am willing to recycle LOTS of things, but mouse traps are not one of them.  Not even to be considered. Nope. I am not recycling mouse traps.  It is bad enough to have to get a dustpan and try to scoop that dadgum nasty thing up.  There is no way on earth I am gonna try to remove a dead mouse and use it again.  OH I am really never gonna be able to sleep again.......