A tapping in the night

Back at Christmas time, if you recall, Older Daughter surprised us with a culinary treat correlating with George C. Scott’s “A Christmas Carol.” (See this post to see what I’m talking about.)

As part of that fun gift to us, she included some chocolate coins (“half a crown”) to represent the pay Scrooge gave the boy at the end of the story for fetching the poulterer on the next street over.

There were about six coins left over, and for the longest time these chocolate coins were simply stacked on top a little shelving unit in the kitchen.

Every so often a coin would disappear, but I didn’t think anything of us. Doubtless someone simply enjoyed one as a treat.

Well, a couple weeks ago, I woke up in the very early morning to hear a persistent tap tap tappity tap. It was loud enough to wake me out of a sound sleep. It certainly didn’t sound like anything Mr. Darcy was doing. What could be making the noise?

I got up, got dressed, and went to investigate. And what did I see?

I saw a mouse dragging one of the chocolate coins under the burners of our stove top. The cheeky little bugger kept getting the coin stuck and was banging it around, trying to get it loose. So that’s where our chocolate coins were going!

This was just the latest proof of an indisputable fact: we had mice.

It’s not that we didn’t try getting rid of them. I tried a nontoxic folk remedy that was supposed to kill mice (baking soda mixed with cornstarch). It didn’t work.

Then I put out poison. This didn’t work either.

So finally we fetched all the mousetraps from the barn, and Don baited them and put them all over the place, especially in the pantry.

We caught the first mouse within five minutes.

And then we caught another within half an hour.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Six mice in the span of twelve hours. After that, we caught no more mice … for a week. Then yesterday, we caught one more. Seven mice.

Interestingly, Don dropped the dead mice off the edge of our porch to the ground below, and by the next day they were all gone.

Apparently the mice were manna from heaven for some animal.

I can’t guarantee it, but I certainly hope that’s the last of the mice.Today and tomorrow I’m giving the kitchen a deep clean. Meanwhile, those traps will stay set.