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We live in a fairly rural/wooded area near town, but with none of the luxuries of country living. Our neighbor has a death metal band that practices at his house (weekly, I think). We have been able to hear the music (and I use the term loosely) ever since we moved in. And now we can hear his growling especially well now that the woods between our houses have been chopped down.

But my favorite (and I use the term facetiously) part is the mice. We moved into this house at the end of February of last year. There were two dead mice decomposing in the washer to welcome us into the home. Sometime since then, probably May-ish, one mouse got into the house and trapped itself in the one kitchen cabinet we don't use. Bryan was then unemployed so he was able to knock it silly with some bait and dispose of it without me ever having to see it.

Well of course, now that my personal exterminator is out of the house, the mice are back to undermine my domain.

Last night as I was getting ready to go to bed, I heard some little scratching sounds. I thought they were coming from the bathroom area of the house. We're only talking about 600 square feet of house, so I couldn't be sure if it was actually the bathroom or the laundry room or perhaps the storage area adjoining it.

I went to investigate and after a couple of minutes of hearing nothing (no way was I going in there) I sighed and decided it might have been the rain hitting something outside. I decided wrong.

This morning I woke up to what sounded like bits of paper being ripped. In my sleep-induced stupor I was about to attribute it to Micah having gotten out of bed and into something, but then I heard him roll over in his bed. (His and Caleb's mattresses have distinct sounds.)

So I get up and arm myself with the mop as I pass through the kitchen to follow the sounds, this time I distinctly hear it in the laundry room, which is also where we keep a shelving unit to store most of our non-perishables. The sound then stops. We have an invisible Mexican standoff for a couple of minutes. I don't want to hop the baby gate and start moving things around to have this rodent come jumping out at me. He doesn't want to run for his life and get mopped.

I decide he must've gnawed a hole to the Outside and made a clean break for it. This would be bad, though, since I like the walls to keep cold (and mice) out. But for some reason I make myself believe it enough to go start getting ready for work. I have a late start at it but still the boys are sleeping so I try to move quickly to make up for lost time.

As I'm pulling on a sweater, I hear teeny disgusting mouse feet skittering across the laminate flooring of the kitchen, and then again I hear nothing. I tell myself I am not a brilliant strategist. So far the mouse is winning. So I rearm with the mop and head for the bathroom, and I hear another mouse feet sound but inside the bathroom. But when I look inside, no mouse. I do find his port of entry and block it off with about two feet of wadded-up foil, for lack of immediate human-rodent combat weaponry.

Operation BadMickey: Wave 1

After work I pick up steel wool and spray insulation to block off his hole and a couple of disposible baits. For some reason mouseholes were cute on Tom & Jerry, but in real life they make me shiver. Now the hole is sealed.

Later Bryan calls and I breif him. He tells me there is some D-Con (sp?) in the storage area. I hope I don't have to use it. When it's about time for bed, we hang up. IMMEDIATELY I hear gnawing. It sounds to be in the vicinity of the steel wool/insulation barricade. They are trying to get through, but I think it's working, because then I hear some noises in the wall between the kitchen and laundry room.

Operation BadMickey: Wave 2

I set one of those D-Con pouches in the opening to the crawlspace under the house, one by the drainage spout for the washer (remembering the shenanigans of mice past), and one by the back door for good measure. I set the other bait that I bought strategically inside the house where the kids won't get at it. The whole bait thing creeps me out. It means the mice will be back to scurry and defile my home some more, then crawl somewhere to die and decompose.

Micah wakes up and I go hug him for a few minutes, and as I sit in the dark I hear It in the wall between the boys' room and the living room (or perhaps in the junction between the aforementioned rooms, the kitchen, and the bathrom. Either way, the thought of It chewing through into my babies' room gives me the ultimate creeps and I start considering how much rent in an apartment in town would cost. Maybe I could rent a place with friend A or friend B. Perhaps we could just stay at my mom's house until It is gone.

Then the thought comes to me, maybe It is Them. Shiver. Is midnight too late to start calling around for vacancies?

So this Osamouse Bin Laden is terrorizing me now. The house is small and quiet and if I can hear It gnawing away on the walls, how can I ever sleep. My self appointed bedtime is 1030pm and now it's almost 1230. I can't relax.

I'd trade one mouse for three deathmetal neighbors.