Critters and Creepy Crawlies

If you remember, awhile back I told you about the visitor that Mike and I had in our apartment. It's been months since the little guy was first spotted. We set all kinds of traps and didn't see a trace of the mouse intruder. That is until we had visitors over. This mouse really must have had a sense of humor, because pretty much without fail he'd come out just to say hi to our guests.

Sunday morning Mike came and told me he thought he heard the mouse in our bedroom. This totally freaked me out, even though I knew that it was likely it had ventured in there. We just hadn't had any proof until that point, so I was blissfully naive, thinking that it just wanted to hang out in our living room and kitchen. I had made up my mind that we were going to get serious and go all out, doing whatever it takes to get rid of that mouse, because I was not about to let it ruin my sleep!! It turns out, I didn't have to. Mike and I had left the house, but forgot something, so I ran in quick to get it and Iat that point I knew the mouse was in the kitchen. I heard it moving near the pop cans next to our fridge. I froze for a minute until I realized that I had a trap back there. Could it really be??? Could we finally have caught our "friend"?? I mustered up the courage to look and sure enough there was the little guy in the trap, definitely dead. A strange mixture of relief and disgust took over. I was in a hurry and didn't have any gloves to put on to deal with the mouse, so I left it there, figuring we'd deal with it later. Unfortunately, we didn't get back home until late Sunday night, so I left it. Gross, I know, but I just couldn't deal with it yet.

So Monday was the big day. I got the courage to pick up the trap (wearing gloves of course) and empty it of the dead carcass. (We have reusable traps, and I wanted it reset asap in case this guy had a girlfriend or any little children roaming around). I was so proud of myself that I did it!!

Then later, I was raking leaves, and clearing some off of our patio. On our patio there is a gap between the foundation of the house and the cement of the patio that collects leaves and other junk. I was sweeping those out when to my great surprise I found a snake!!! I poked it cautiously to see if it was still alive and sure enough it was. All I could think about was how dangerously close that snake was to being inside our house and how there was no way I could deal with a snake in the apartment. So I quickly grabbed the snake by the tail and tossed it into the yard. "Hmmm, that wasn't soo bad," I thought. "Actually that was kind of interesting, I better show Mike!" So I called Mike to come outside and picked up the snake. Mike couldn't believe that I was holding onto it. That made me feel cool so I acted all nonchalant and said "Eh, snakes don't really bother me!" (It was a tiny garter snake, less than a foot I'm sure). So after the fun with the snake we took it over to the creek in our backyard and tossed it. I was pretty proud of myself for all my animal handling skills! But I'm glad that it's all over. I'm ready to be rid of any other unexpected guests!