Mouse: 1; Me: Minus a Toaster

[aggienaut]

   Yesterday I got home from Ye Old Factory after an overnight shift, at 11:30am. I proceeded to take a nap on the couch.

   Around 14:00 I was rudely awakened by a mouse loudly squeaking. I didn't want to get up and knew from past experience there'd be no hope of confronting the culprit, I'd just see it scuttling behind the oven. So instead I just loudly exclaimed "SHUT UP MOUSE!!"

   That worked for only about a minute before it started up again, so I got up, it was probably about time to anyway. Investigation revealed the mouse was actually in the toaster, his leg suck on the toast elevator. This was an interesting circumstance but there was no simple solution. The most obvious, that were this a computer game I'd call "delightfully evil" and do in a moment to an enemy, would be to activate the toaster and toast the hapless creature to death. But this is not a video game and I am not a sadist towards animals, that seemed cruel and inhumane. Plus, then I'd have a toasted mouse in my toaster!!!

   But how to extract it? My favorite method of disposing of mice is somewhat avoidant -- I have live capture traps and when I get one I like to put it in my greenwaste bin. I assume it can happily live there off the bugs frolicking on rotting lemons in a sea of coffee grinds, until its pitched into the greenwaste truck where it will either be taken off to some greenwaste paradise, or possibly crushed, but ::shrug:: that's not on me and everything dies eventually. So I was contemplating maybe taking the toaster to the greenwaste bin and shaking it upside down into it in hopes the mouse popped out, when the mouse popped out. And in half a second had disappeared down the gap behind my kitchen cupboards (this place unfortunately is a mouse's dream with the available gaps).

   So now this mouse is still alive in my house and I have a toaster it may have pooped and peed in. How do you clean a toaster? Maybe I should take a bath and bring the toaster that's a classic yeah? ahaha. If I had, like Paul "Maud dib" * Atriedes from Dune, had spice induced foreknowledge of future events, I suppose I would have just tossed the whole god damn toaster in the trash bin. It's a $40 toaster but not sure how I can possibly clean the insides it might as well be trash. (* "Maud dib" apparently means "desert mouse" in-universe, maybe it was the mouse that had foreknowledge of future events after getting into my spice cabinet)

Comments

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[mer-agitee.livejournal.com]

Reading your entry made me panic twice. First for the mouse and then towards the end of the entry for you! Humans have simply taken up all the space and my worries for the other animals keep growing. Anyway, you need to find to someone (who cares) to get the mouse or mice out and then seal the openings. Sad for the mouse to lose his home but also, your life is at risk with the contamination, you have got to stay safe!

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

Oh heavens! I would, were I you, wipe the toaster down, shake it out, spray it with rubbing alcohol and consider it sanitized.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I sprayed its insides with a hose until it looked as lean as I could get it, but I didn't think of rubbin alcohol, that's a good idea. ... just definitel need to make sure to wait until it all dissipates before activating the toaster! Otherwise I may have a fireball machine!

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

Yeh, I'd definitely use it outside the first time!

BTW, if you are going to put them in the trash inside the trap, why not use snap traps? In the end, better for them to die right away than suffocate, right?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't throw them in in the trap, the trap has airholes and I dump them out of it into the bin. The bin is something like 150 liters, I fully anticipate that should be enough air to last them ages, especially with me opening the lid at least every few days. And, this is kind of funny really but, when I tossed it in last night (I forget, did I mention I caught it?), I couldn't see what was in the bin but I went to check this morning specifically because I wanted to make sure it had food, and there were a number of rotting fruit and even some old sausages I had thrown out, I'm assuming this is all good foor for a mouse, plus the bugs that live on it. And even then I found myself wondering if I should throw something out just to feed it ahaha.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

I hate the little fuckers. I have traps in my kitchen but they never go in them. Night before last one of them was making even more annoying scrabbly sounds than usual so I thought it might have gone in a trap but it didn't. I found it in a bag of flour and it wasn't moving at all so for a minute I thought maybe it had died so I tried to pick it up but it ran away too fast.

[lookfar.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't you worry that the mouse will get out of the bin and back into his comfy abode — your cupboards?