The second rodent inspector said that, in all his years, this situation was roughly an 8 on a scale of 10...10 being a tenement.
That is horrifying. I have to say, our house has some overcrowding issues (too much stuff, virtually no storage), and the office is straight out of Hoarders (and is an ongoing struggle for me, but we're working on it), BUT we have no vermin. (Or, when we've had a mouse -- this is a 1920s house that isn't sealed as tight as new construction, and 1 mouse gets in *maybe* once a year -- we take care of it right away so that it doesn't escalate.) I don't mean to judge, but, man, once you have vermin, that's scary.
(Let us not speak of stinkbugs, for lo, they can die in all the fires. I would worry that we are Those People With A Stinkbug Infestation, except pretty much everyone I know in Cincy has had stinkbug problems for the last 2 years.) (Also, it's not an infestation; I think it's the same 2 stinkbugs that come inside, and then we catch them and release them [because if you kill them, they stink], and then they come back inside. Although I guess we could flush them. I'm tempted to paint a dot on their backs before we release them to see if it's the same ones. [Tim's mom did that with a mouse, for real. They kept getting a white mouse over and over; they would catch it in a humane trap and the boys would take it 1/4 mile away and release it...and then a white mouse would show up again. So one day she put food coloring on a q-tip and stuck it in the trap and painted the mouse's belly. Sure enough, same mouse.])
The stinkbugs are causing problems in my area as well. They're also messing up the Virginia vineyards' wine production (oh no!).
And you may find this interesting - cuter, smarter vermin.
I'm surprised I don't have an infestation, what with corners I haven't seen in way too long. I do have jillifonts, some of size, and I'm hoping by the time I get into the far corners they'll all have died off for the season. Or that they'll have fair warning that urban renewal is coming to their neighborhood and it's time to move.
Sure enough, same mouse.
If I didn't struggle with my own mouse issues, I'd find that hilarious.
Oh, I don't even think about the jillifonts. Our house is like their headquarters, though they are primarily outside. They love our porch. I think they text each other our address. And since they eat mosquitoes, as long as they stay outside, we have an understanding. When they come in, though, all bets are off.
They generally stay outside, except for those hunting the bugs inside. I generally have wolfs, which Hubby loved--fuzzy, blue-eyed, I think I caught him petting one once. Call it a wolf, and he loved it. The one thing I hate about this time of year is that their coming in to set up nests.
Great. A homing mouse.
She was an incredible baker, so the mouse was no fool. I think they ultimately trapped and released it several miles away, and then it didn't come back. I love that story, though. (She was also a terror to the moles. They ruined her yard, so she had no mercy. She knew when they were most active, and she would watch the yard at that time, and when she saw movement, she would run out with a shovel and a spade; she would jam the spade behind the mole so it couldn't go backwards, and then with the shovel she'd dig in front and scoop out the mole with the dirt, and the poor thing would die of fright.)
She was a wee tiny woman (5'1" or 5'2" and very petite), so the image of her as the mole slayer is THE BEST. I think there's a photo somewhere of her proudly showing off a trophy mole after a successful stakeout.
When I was in college, one of the guys in the dorm had a cat. He couldn't figure out why the cat kept getting fatter ... until it turned out the cat was catching and eating moles, mice, etc. Made the guys who worked on the grounds happy. Guess it made the cat happy, too.
as long as they stay outside, we have an understanding. When they come in, though, all bets are off.
Same in our house, and it was one of the things Pete was worried about when he was in the UK for a month. But the first night he was gone, Vlad trapped a jillifont, and I beat it to death with a shoe.
After that, every jillifont Vlad displayed was very dead. I guess I just needed to show mighty hunter cat what to do?
Maria, I'm happy for you about the EMT!
