They're Back...UGH!

The other night I was watching tv and working on Jessica's socks when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw "something" by the window. Nah....I thought to myself, I didn't see anything, but I kept looking over to where I thought I saw something and kept reassuring myself that nope, I didn't see anything at all. Denial is a good thing sometimes, right? It's still warm out! It's too early! Denial was dashed when I saw the something I thought I didn't see scamper across the floor. Crud. A mouse! UGH. Yes, a mouse came into the house and I'm pretty sure I saw the dang thing climb in through the window screen. Sigh...remember earlier this summer when I said we had a squirrel chew through our screens? Well, the not so bright, I don't want to deal with it, "solution" was to close the windows. Only, I really like fresh air, especially in the summer time. So, the window in the living room was kept open. I figured we are too active during the day to have anything crawl in. That theory is well and good...during the day. Not so much at night, when it's quiet and I neglected to close the windows. So, out came the traps once again.

Steve looked around the living room the first night and I think we saw it run along the baseboards toward our bookshelves. Didn't catch it. Then he asked where the duct tape was that he had out on the counter. Yes...he used duct tape to cover the hole! (good thinking, right...**tapping and nodding her head**) There might have even been me standing on one of the girls' chairs for a little bit. Steve said I looked ridiculous and to get down. Well, I didn't want it to run across my feet should we scare it out into the open. Sheesh, at least I didn't scream. Just cursed.

The second night, I saw it again...dang! Stupid little critter. THEN and you are not going to believe this...I didn't! I was working on those socks again (with my feet up on the couch, thank you very much) and looked up to see a mouse climbing UP THE SCREEN (on the outside, not on the inside-thank goodness)!!! That dang thing was looking for a way in. Grrrrr....I'll bet the first one announced to his little mouse buddies...I'm in! I'm in...c'mon! Looked at my traps the next morning...still nothing.

Then I looked at the duct taped hole in the screen and saw another bitty hole or two, with the piece of screen on the inside! The little sucker chewed through the screen next to the duct tape. Argghhhh! Up went another piece of duct tape (not such a bright solution after all, huh?). But we are smart now...we are closing the window at night, ha! Well, it must be a determined critter because just a bit ago I looked again and there is ANOTHER hole in the screen! Here...see for yourself. Guess what's on the honey do list for this weekend?

The big hole is courtesy of the squirrel who must have broadcast to the other critters that this house was easy pickins'. You can see to the left of that big hole the new ones from the other day (that are duct taped) and where there is no tape is the one from last night apparently. It's either change the screen or block out the light with the duct tape, I guess.

So, in light of this, I've had to do another clean up and clean out of the living room. I hadn't moved too much back onto the bookshelves thankfully, but I had a lot of yarn hanging around. So I had to box that up. Then I had to clean up all the little poopies they leave. I had to turn over the couch and the chair and vacuum out any stray crumbs and make sure they hadn't chewed holes into them. The whole time I was doing this I was yelling at it to get the &^%$ out of my house. I haven't seen evidence of it since the clean up, so I am hoping the bugger slipped back outside at some point unnoticed and thought he could just saunter back in as he pleased. Either that, or he's moved to another part of the house that I don't know about yet. Please, please, please let it be the former!

Sigh...and to add insult to this...both the dog and the cat were awake and in the living room when I saw the mouse the first time. Do you think they cared in the least? Noooooo...they just wondered why I was acting like a dork.