A Mouse Invasion

Backstory: About a month ago we discovered mice in our garage.  They had taken up nest in a bag of Buddy's cat food.  After discarding the bag we thought we had solved the problem...

Christmas had come and gone.  The gifts had been opened and put away.  We had been home from our vacation for about a week at this point.  New Years Day I went upstairs to do some filing and was nauseated at the smell coming from the closet.  Brushing it off a bit I started to pull out my filing boxes and noticed bits of cat food and cardboard on the lids.  Upon further inspection I noticed that the half eaten bag of cat food had two tiny holes in it.  Thinking maybe Buddy had gotten into the bag I called Josh up.

Josh took one look at the bag and smelled the closet before exclaiming MICE.  While we were away the mice that were living in our garage had burrowed their way up the wall and into the attic, which is directly above the garage.  Smelling the food in the closet, they ATE their way through the wall and took up home.  

Lets just say there was poop everywhere.  On EVERYTHING.  On our camping gear, on board games, on boxes of old pictures from Josh's family.  I was immediately disgusted.  Sure I grew up on a farm but mice in the house.  Not cool.  

We went to the store and got about ten traps.  Josh baited them and placed them strategically in the closet and attic areas.  Then we started capturing them.  The first day we had six mice, two of which were half eaten.  Yes we have cannibalistic mice. Guess they were desperate?

Buddy got in on the action capturing two that escaped downstairs.  He helped Josh corner them and get them outside.  We have even let Buddy have free reign of the attic in hopes he will assist in the mice clearing.  He's so cute standing guard at the top of the steps in order to prevent them from running down stairs.  

Five days in and we have caught a total of 13.  Thankfully the traps have been empty the last two days.  I hope this is because there is no more mice to catch and not because they've gotten smart.  The upstairs is still in disarray.  Poop is still on everything.  I refuse to clean it until we are certain the problem is taken care of.  I also do not want Mara up there so cleaning will have to wait till Josh is around and one of us can watch her.

Talking to the property manager today, I have hopes that they will bring a profession out to look at the issue as well.  Getting in the garage is one thing but lets seal up the house itself!  

Here's to hoping lucky 13 is our number.  No new mice!!