Tuesday, September 30, 2014

The never-ending mousetail ... I mean, mouse tale

Back in July I posted about Tom finding a mouse in the sink.

This evening after dinner, I loaded the dishwasher but did not immediately turn it on. I usually wait for a while to see if anything else will appear that needs to be tucked in before we run the machine. I went down to my office and piddled around for almost an hour. Then I went back up and, seeing no new items in need of a wash, decided to run the load already there. When I opened the door to put soap in the dispenser, a small mouse started running around the edge of the door on the inside. I was able to scoop it up and return it unharmed to the wild.

Apparently it is not unusual for mice to find their way into dishwashers. Some people resort to leaving traps in the bottom of the machine and checking them before running a load. (I assume they remove the traps first.) This is the first time I have seen evidence of a mouse inside ours, and I may start putting in cotton balls soaked with peppermint oil to keep them away. This seems to work for most other places in the house and a minty smell is better that traps with dead mice.

As bad as it was to discover a mouse when getting ready to wash dishes, imagine the greater horror if, after unloading clean dishes, I had looked down and seen a drowned mouse at the bottom of the machine.

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