Seventeen metres of gaffer tape and fifty-nine million mice

Early this year we had mice. A whole entire family of them.

When the first one appeared my sister and I spent three days in wellies, which we gaffer taped up, unable to go into either of our bedrooms because that’s where we’d seen it. Actually we gaffer taped the doors too and then stood on a box outside phoning every man we knew within a five mile radius for help. You think I’m joking don’t you. So did they. I was not.

It wasn’t long before we realised there was not one, but many mice. Many, many, many mice. Nothing we did seemed to stem the flow; we chased one with a Hoover, we put poison in the humane traps. I know, I KNOW. It sounds mean but the fuckers wouldn’t die otherwise; they seemed to think that humane traps were some kind of fairground attraction to have fun in rather than die in. And we *really* wanted them to die.

A colleague at work was dismayed by my actions: please don’t kill the mouse, Elika, it has a family. Don’t misunderstand me, I replied, I’m trying to kill the WHOLE family. This is genocide.

For days we filled the poison trays and the gannets munched it up. Then one day we realised it wasn’t going as quickly anymore. I had images of the mouse family (extensive) sitting around their kitchen table discussing the fact that they have all been feeling a bit peaky lately. And the Daddy mouse says: OK, what have we ALL eaten?

For a while I thought I could smell the unpleasant smell of success in the airing cupboard, another part of the house infiltrated by the freaky little fuckers. But no and oh-holy-mother-of-arsing-shit, one night, sitting up in bed, a mouse, a huge fat mouse; a MAMMOTH of the mouse family, ran along the wall of my bedroom and behind a book case. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I was naked. You can’t fight a mouse naked; you can only sit and hyperventilate. I was on Facebook when this mouse visited and at exactly the same time another terrible thing happened. I got a friend request:

Those Mice

I SHIT YOU NOT.

The next day someone sent us a game of Mouse Trap; this was some kind of domestic torture.

You’ll be pleased to know that eventually we killed them all using a combination of poison, traps and a dropped desk (but that’s another story). My sister and I were talking about it the other day and how it wasn’t something we could go through again.

But they are back. Last night when I stumbled home and wandered into the kitchen, a mouse ran along from one side of a kitchen counter to the other. A. Fucking. Mouse. He’s at home now, just like he was before, feet up flicking through the Guardian, wondering what’s for supper. I don’t think my ticker can take it this time ‘round. Your support is welcome, or you could invite me for Christmas… could you?