So, back on the blog here. I seriously thought they'd have disabled it by now. We have a mouse problem.

For the last 4 weeks the evidence of mild rodent (for mild, read mouse, not rat) infestation has been piling up. It started with some droppings under the sink. Our response was to get on down to B & Q and buy a humane mouse trap - one that just traps it and then you drive 2 miles (with a live, trapped mouse) away from the house and release it to live like Elsa the lion. This is of course driven by Gillian who doesnt want to have anything to do with killing animals.

Fill up the bait bit with peanut butter, leave under the sink and wait. Wait. Wait. No mouse in trap, no shortage of droppings under the sink. We don't do anything abut this of course. We just leave things as they are (including the bait, probably influencing its usefulness) and get on with life. About 4 weeks later (a week ago) the evidence has started to spread about the kitchen, the living room and even upstairs.

On Sunday we take action. I look up the net for ideas and discover that there are these ultrasonic doo-dads that emit well, ultrasonics, and this drives the mice mad, forcing them to leave. We expected to see a string of them heading for the front door, little mouse hands over their little mouse ears shouting 'Enough!!'. At least for the first 2 days we weren't too let down. No droppings. Well, I didn't see any, but Gillian found lots of them. I think I didn't want to admit we wasted 30 quid a piece for 2 things that plug into the wall and glow in the dark.

It has to be said at this point that I was all for killing the little devil prior to the purchase. However I try to live a humane life, in a psuedo buddhist way ( I might come back as a mouse) and I defintley want to keep my wife happy so I had been eager enough to plump for the humanitarian solution that works like a Napalm Death gig.

So with the increased deposits of 3 mm pellets Gillian has succumbed to my primal urge (to kill) and has agreed my heading to the hardware store again, this time to purvey the wide selection of rodent slaughtering devices. I might also add that our neighbour said he gets mice all the time (these old houses) and he uses the old snap traps. Never been a problem.

I've purchased the one that has the trap in a pastic box, so the mouse goes in, dies and you dont have to look at it. On reflection though we're ditching the box and leaving out the raw trap. Before I head upstairs tonight I'm setting the trap wiith fresh peanut butter and then waiting. I'll let you know how we get on.