A mouse is in the house
DEAR JOAN: We have two cats that have the run of our house and the outdoors via a cat door. Both are over 10 years old, and most of the time their access to the outdoors is not a problem. However, with the recent great weather, one of them, Oli, has on three successive days caught a mouse and brought it into the house.
He apparently loves the catching game, but his interest wanes once he brings it in and drops it.
The mouse is very much alive and we begin playing hide and seek while the cats could care less.
My wife loves animals and views the mouse visitor as a furry little nonthreatening creature.
Capturing a loose mouse in the house should be an Olympic sport.
On a recent occasion the mouse got the best of us and disappeared.
While I have visions of the loose mouse climbing over me while I am asleep, or giving birth to more guests, my wife’s attitude is that eventually, one of the cats will get him, or that he will find his way out, and it’s just not a big deal. How big a deal is it? Closing the cat door is not an option, and I do have some indoor mouse traps in place.
By the way, the one that got away scurried in front me later in the evening while I was watching TV, and I was able to catch him with a pail and release him back to the big outdoors to do battle another day.
A small win, but I slept better. Mike Danville
DEAR MIKE: I have a feeling I’m going to get angry letters on this one no matter what I do, but let’s take it a step at a time.
On the scale of horrible things that can happen, having a mouse in your house is not at the top. That still doesn’t mean it’s OK.
A single mouse isn’t going to do a lot of harm, but it will attempt to find a good hiding place from the cats, which might mean it gnaws into a wall, into the stuffing of a chair, or perhaps cozies up in your wife’s shoe.
Mice don’t use litter boxes, so there’s that.
It also needs to eat and will make its way into your kitchen cabinets and chew into boxes of things that it might find tasty.
If it can, it might escape outside, but it might also take a liking to your home and invite friends in to share.
Mice also might harbor some fleas or other pesky pests that could find your home comfy, too.
You say your wife is an animal lover.
How does she feel about lizards, baby birds and snakes?
Will she be happy to have a snake, most of which are as nonthreatening as the mouse, slithering around until it finds its way out?
Unless you are willing and able to close that cat door, I’m afraid you’re going to have to live with all manner of creatures being brought into the house, which will keep you in training for when the Olympics makes house mouse-catching an official sport. Cats are natural hunters. They stalk prey and if they aren’t hungry when they catch it, they practice those hunting skills on the hapless creature until it’s dead, it escapes or the cat gets bored.
If the door stays open, then my advice is to rescue the creature as quickly as you can and release it outside. A house is no place for wildlife.