Quiet as a Mouse?

Not sure where that phrase came from or why but I know first hand they aren't so quiet after all.

I think a mouse epidemic is happening in our little house here in Thailand. We have suspected that there might be something a little larger than ants in our house. About two months ago I was in my room and heard a noise. I tip toed down the hall to Brookie's room and had her come out in the hall to listen. We were leaning over the bannister....whatever it was it sounded big. We snuck downstairs and turned on the kitchen light...the noise stopped. Then I saw this small flash of black run from the fridge to the stove...... "Ahhhhhhhhhh" pointing to it I said "mouse!!!" Brookie and I were completely grossed out but that is the last that we saw of it...or so we thought.

Now, two months later, there have been other sightings!  We are realizing that this could become a huge problem. The other night I was in my room and I heard Brooke screaming from downstairs. I go down and find her on the second step peaking into the kitchen. She has walked over to the cabinet to put the bread away so the mouse couldn't get to it. As she looked up there was a mouse in mid chew on the end of our loaf of bread!!! UUUGGGG!!!! It was probably more scared of the screeching girl then the girl of the mouse! It leaped off the counter onto the screened window then down to the floor where it hid. Yuck....and I had just bought that loaf hours prior to that.

A couple of times since I have been back we have all been down stairs cooking or sitting or talking and all of a sudden a mouse jets across the floor. There is just something eery and "hair standing on the back of your neck" type feeling you get from seeing that in your own home! Today I was sitting on the second step and Brookie was sitting on a trunk across from me. We were catching on on each other's day and she got this weird look in her eye as she said "don't scream but there is a mouse right near your foot".....I inched up a couple of steps. Tonight we were sitting at the dinner table and we heard them squeaking back and forth to each other....creepy.....so we made a rash decision..."no more...no longer...no more tolerance!!!!!" We jumped into the car and I drove us to the store. In search of poison, traps, gas....something and everything to get rid of these vermins.


Which shall we choose?

A whole isle dedicated to killing bugs and rodents...

So we left the store with green apples and three sticky strips (traps) for the mice. Kelly was home so we all bonded over this moment, placing the food in the middle of the gunk.
Setting up our little traps...bread in the middle.

A trap set near the little hole under the door where they sneak in.



This task was completed and set at 9:30 tonight. I now sit upstairs waiting for the first victim in the pasty mess! We shall see how many casualties there are in the morning.....

           

THE BEFORE SHOT

The Next Morning...

It must have been five something in the morning when I awake to squealing.  My bedroom is upstairs and I had the door closed!  I was completely grossed out.  I had to turn on my Air-Con in my room to flush out the sounds.  At 6:30 Brookie came into my room to wake me up.  Kelly popped her head out of her door and stated, "Come on girls!  It's like Christmas!"  So we all tip toed down the stairs in the dark.  Kelly reached for the light switch and flipped it.  Investing the damage....  There were definitely two stuck by the door but we couldn't see the other one.  Kelly was getting  a better look.

Seconds after I took this pictures we heard a screeching mouse and then a screeching Kelly who jumped up and ran to the stairs where I was standing!  It was hilarious!

THE AFTER SHOT

Can I say it "GROOOOOOOOOSSSSSSS"
We all freaked out and didn't know what to do.  Every single mouse was alive and twitching and making noises.  So Brookie called, Uncle David but he had been up sick all night.  So his wife came instead.  Sadly, and I mean this, I wasn't out of the shower yet when she showed up in her PJs and a HAMMER!!!!!  By the time I got out she had already done her dead and left back to her house.  Apparently, she said that all it took was a little tap.  Yep that is right, she made her way around our house, tapping the little heads of each mouse and then departed!  She is AMAZING!  Kelly has deemed her "MC Hammer."  HA!  Though she killed them we still had the problem of getting rid of them.
TRAP ONE

  MC Hammer had apparently just stunned the biggest of them all, he was back to squeaking and twitching. Kelly was freaking out so she didn't want to pick up the second trap. Brookie offered since I wasn't speaking up.  I took the bag and Kelly took the camera where she stood safe on the stairs.  Brookie stooped down and pinched the siding of the trap and turned to put in in the very small bag we had.  I meanwhile was trying to open it wide enough and realized in Brooke's mid turn that the math wasn't adding up!  The rat was going to touch my arm!  I started backing up and freaking out yelling "my hand, my hand, the rat, the rat" while Brookie, with an out stretched arm replied at my same volume, "open the bag, open the bag! ahldkadhaadklhfaldk (it was high pitch and incomprehensible)  Then she added "just close your freakin' eyes!  Just close your eyes!!!!!"   Simultaneously the rat was yelling.  This lasted for a long minute until she caught on to what I was trying to say and turned the trap so the rat would go in first and not touch my hand!  Meanwhile behind us, Kelly was laughing so hard.

TRAP TWO
We all laughed of course but we were freaked out,  goose bumps, and jumpy girls!  Brookie and I could barely eat anything for breakfast.  We set two more traps up since we would be gone during the day but left the back door closed.  No casualties yet....but we will leave up the traps and keep the door closed until the little hole in the door is fixed.  

YUCK!

So, I just posted then and I hear Brookie downstairs, "Ewwwww there is another day!!!"  Another one bites the dust!

Total: 7