Feb 7, 2017 3 min read

I enjoy hosting houseguests. However, I do not enjoy hosting unwanted, uninvited houseguests – especially when they are tiny, furry rodents who take up residence surprisingly and seemingly in the middle of the night.

I was horrified recently to discover that one or more miniature creatures chose to move in without asking and apparently scurry around the basement, garage and kitchen in search of their meal and a nice, warm place to bunk. Ewwww! I am only hoping that they are miniature creatures given that I have not seen them but have only discovered their presence thanks to some miniscule, um … gifts they left behind along their trail.

Not one to shriek in horror or cower in a corner, I immediately turned to the one place I knew I could find help during this crisis of occupation: the internet. How do you get rid of a mouse? Do I need to use mousetraps? Do devices that emit sonic waves really scare away household pests? The answers and amount of information were endless. You have to consider the source. I never trust the first few entries that show up in an internet search because these are always sponsored by companies hoping to sway your actions and spending. The first of these entries was by (of course) an extermination company. They didn’t want me to spend money buying one of those ultrasonic devices, saying that no scientific evidence exists to prove they are effective. They obviously wanted me to call them instead.

I turned to other sources of advice, and my boyfriend told me his family found mice in the garage a few years ago when their cat had one cornered and was playing with it. They bought those ultrasonic plug-in devices and haven’t seen any mice since. I’m also wondering if having cats around the house had something to do with the mice making themselves scarce. I could always get a cat as a permanent solution. Then again, the fact that I am allergic to cats might make that a bit unpleasant.

Finally, I opted for a three-pronged attack: bait boxes, glue traps and a plug-in ultrasonic device. The first morning, I found the bait boxes in the basement and garage had been tossed asunder. Hopefully, this means the mice made a little feast out of them. So far, I thankfully have not seen any signs of mice being stuck in the traps, and I’m not quite sure what I’ll do if that happens. I’m not sure if the poison bait did the trick or whether the plug-in device really is rattling their little mice brain waves or making some noise that only their little mice ears can detect, but I have not seen any evidence of my houseguests hanging around the past few days. If they return, I guess I could always borrow some cats for an emergency exterminating session.

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.