Yesterday we discussed having cats fixed and
Short Woman commented about having cats in an apartment and how you had to limit the number you took in because
soon you're banging the hood of your car before you start it up lest you kill 3 kittens trying to leave home.
Which reminded me of the time Richard and Julie and I lived in a house next door to an empty lot, which had mice. One day I opened the dish washer door and out flew a terrified mouse. A plumber explained to me that mice can fold in their ribs and get into dishwashers easily and being next to an open field, my house was going to be prone to it.
So, after that we had a little routine. Rinse dishes before they go into the dish washer, so they don't draw mice. Get the dishes unloaded while still almost too hot to handle, so the mice haven't walked on the clean ones, and whenever you open it, knock on the dishwasher so you don't sling one across the kitchen when you open the door. It worked for us. Usually worked for the mice, as well.
15 comments:
Oh, I can really relate to this post. Mice are tricky little magicians aren't they? They can make themselves as thin as paper it seems and get through the tiniest of cracks.
We live near fields too, and one of them is being upturned for a new housing development. Drat! Now that the weather has turned cold the uprooted mice from that field are scampering around looking for new warm lodgings for the winter. The mice real estate people bring them by our garage all the time but they don't knock or make appointments. The nerve.
The little blighters have me knocking on the inside garage door though. Yep, before I open the door between the house and garage I knock on it just in case a mouse is lurking on the other side ready to run in when I go out.
My motto these days is "knock on"!
That was a nice arrangement! I think I that would make me want to get a cat!
I work in a shop and we have this problem. I knock on EVERYTHING before I open it. One tried to sneak into the bathroom with me the other day. I told him to get the hell outa there! Thankfully, he did.
Tracy, we had two cats at the time. They were always catching mice. The thing is, cats can't get inside of dishwashers.
I don't remember the mice being such a problem before they started developing that empty lot. Just like cuppa said, that displaced them and made them seek our comfy dishwasher. I hardly got used to it, though. ack!
Nice arrangement you had with the mice. We also lived by an open field, one morning I got up and went down stairs, turned on the light and there were at least five mice running here and there in the kitchen. One even went into the toaster. I turned the light off and went back to bed.
lalunas, going back to bed would be a good idea.
Mice in the dishwasher. Something new to worry about. Thanks, Maya's Granny!
Thanks for the welcome back! In my first professional job I set up a library in an old quonset hut building in the tropics and many mornings found a little mouse that had fallen into the wastebasket seeking food and not able to hop out! I would carry him to the front door and dump him out on the lawn.
If we had that problem when I was growing up, my step dad would have done the following:
1. Get his BB pistol (with the "pump action")
2. Let the mice out of the dishwasher
3. And, well, you can guess the rest... (holes in the house and all).
Is is possible to shoot a mouse? They are little and fast and I wouldn't think they would be easy to hit at all.
Also, it is hard for me to imagine your step-dad shooting mice. Guess I don't know him as well as I could.
Oh, oh oh. Yuck. I am the proverbial housewife when it comes to mice: they terrify me! Completely irrational, but there it is.
I think I am the only person left on this earth who has NEVER owned a dishwasher. Now I know why!
I detest mice. Once I had to go and stay with my daughter as she was put to bed while expecting her first child. Their house was also next to a field. She had two cats and they did their best but to no avail. Mice would swim( or drown) in the sink, scurry across the kitchen counters at night leaving their droppings.
Daughter had a flip top large trash can in the kitchen. One night I placed pieces of cheese on the counter leading to the edge of the counter. Put the flip top trash can underneath. Placed cheese in the trash can and hoped for the best.
The next morning the trash can held many of the nasty little creatures. They had followed my cheese trail and then jumped over onto the top of the flip top and fell into the can where they were trapped.
SIL had to empty the mice out for me.
My Rube Goldberg mouse trap worked.
Mice are kinda cute.
Rats, however, just freak me out. I had to kill one once that the dog was playing with, and it was just gross.
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