First Houseguest!

Two weeks ago I went into the kitchen on a Sunday evening to pour myself a glass of wine.  As I finished pouring I replaced the bottle on the counter and heard a little noise in the corner near the coffee maker. When I turned to look at what was happening, I saw something scurry across the stove, over the counter and under our lovely kitchen hutch.  Of course this surprised me, so I screamed and threw my wine all over the floor and yelled at Gav to come and help.  He just laughed at me and was totally unconcerned that we had a rat/mouse hiding in our house.   I cleaned up the wine off the floor and saw that one of the drains in the kitchen that we had asked to be covered with a grate had come open again.  I figured this was our new tenant’s point of entry and dearly hoped that it would be his point of exit as well.  We closed the door to the kitchen and with much poking and prodding (and a little screeching on my part), managed to get the critter back out the hole he came in.  He seemed to know his way around alarmingly well, but I figured we would tell school to come cement up the hole again and all would be well.

The maintenance guys from school actually come the very next day to fix the hole.  We did wonder briefly which side of the wall our little friend was on when his point of entry was closed off, but hoped for the best.  Over the next few days sometimes I would hear some small noises but kept telling myself that I was being paranoid.  Then one morning after a run when I walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light, I saw it again!  Running the same gauntlet across the stove to dive under the hutch.  By this point Gav had named our little friend (and told me it was a mouse not a rat although I think that was just to calm me down) Ei Mou Mou.  Ei (said just like the letter E) is a common name here and also the sound I made every time I saw our little buddy) and Mou for mouse of course.

At this point we had to wonder how he was getting in as the obvious route was blocked.  The front door is open a lot for the dog, and to be honest the house is far from air tight with lots of space under doors, etc that I guess creatures could get through.  I mean, our internet comes into our house through a cable threaded through an open window so anything is possible.  I saw him a few more times and now we were wondering if maybe he was trapped inside?  We didn’t want to get a kill trap for the little guy, but did want him to vacate the premises.  Luckily this is a Buddhist country and finding a live trap shouldn’t be a problem, but then these past few days I didn’t see it at all and kind of figured he made his way outside again and our ordeal was over.

This morning I came into the kitchen and found this:

Yes, this is my nice papaya that was supposed to be topping my granola this week with a VERY BIG chunk nibbled out of it.  And tell-tale mouse-y teeth marks all around.  Ewww!  Gav’s reaction?  “Oh good, we know he has had something to eat.”  What?  He was worried that Ei Mou Mou has been hungry under the hutch and was so relieved to know that he had found a snack.

Ok, enough is enough and I wanted to wage Operation Mouse Eviction.  So we tried to plug hiding holes with towels, opened the back door, and armed ourselves with brooms to “guide” our friend out the door for good.  Gav got down on his hands and knees to sweep under the hutch and I stood guard to direct and hopefully not freak out when that thing came running out from under his hiding place.  See photo above.

Well, nothing happened.  That mouse was not in his hiding spot, so either he has a new one in the house (noooooooo!) or he just come and goes as he pleases.  Neither option is acceptable, so now I have to try to get our maintenance guys to set some live traps for Ei Mou Mou and relocate him somewhere far away.  I kind of assumed that having a dog would be a natural deterrent for these critters, but it turns out that Nell is, indeed, completely useless.  Maybe we need a cat.