An Epic Showdown

In the tradition of heroes like Luke Skywalker and Batman, I spent this morning trying to outwit my enemy.

That's right; I tried to capture the mouse terrorizing our apartment. And by terrorizing, I mean sometimes coming out from underneath the stove and leaving a few random turds on the counter.

It all started a few months ago when I saw a turd on our kitchen counter. The turd spotting conveniently coincided with the building's annual exterminator inspection. The exterminator told us that our apartment was too clean for mice, but he left a trap filled with poison anyways.

There was no sign of a mouse after that for months until two weeks ago, when a little guy darted out from under the stove while I was cooking and ran into a small crack in our wall. I was not happy to learn there we had a mouse hole, and I called our management company.

A different exterminator came again yesterday and patched up the mouse hole. He said there was no sign of activity in the mouse trap, but if there was a mouse he would eat the poison in the trap and slowly hemorrhage. EWW!

Of course the mouse decided to make an appearance TODAY and ran underneath my bed! After getting him out from under the bed, I followed as he ran into the kitchen and back under the stove. First, he tried to run down the mouse hole, but it's now sealed up so he ran back under the stove.

I had a moment of brilliance and decided to barricade the mouse in the area of the stove and then open our fire escape so he would just wander out. My plan in action below: So far, my plan has not proven successful. Apparently, "my boyfriend" (as Sally calls him) spent part of the afternoon running around in circles in his barricade.

I have set up two peanut butter-baited humane traps in the barricade, but they are currently untouched. I know the traps aren't very effective, but I can't deal with a little dead mouse in our apartment!

We'll see what happens with our little friend. Updates to follow...