cleaning by mouse

Yesterday was eventful. I woke up to put the kids on the bus, looking forward to a relatively quiet morning of sewing (halloween costumes and hemming curling pants) and then an afternoon of skating fun.

As I'm sitting at my computer, I notice that Pixie, our small blonde cat is waiting by my dishwasher. Quietly. She had been complaining bitterly that no one had let her out to prowl the night before (it was horribly cold) yet the door had been opened and she hadn't gone out. She was sitting in my kitchen.

Since it was quiet, I listened and heard a mouse rattling around under one of my appliances.

Well, this is the farm. Mice happen at this time of year. So, I asked Dale (who was downstairs) if he wanted me to wait before I pulled out the stove drawer. That was the easy access point to underneath the appliances.

He came up, I pulled out the stove drawer. No mouse.
Then Dale pulled out the stove. No mouse.
Then he removed my pan storage unit. No mouse.
Then the panels came off the front of the dishwasher. Could hear the mouse, but couldn't see it.
So then the dishwasher got unloaded, the cabinet above it got unloaded, and the whole thing got moved. Small blonde cat is still waiting in the kitchen.
The mouse, of course, took off for the living room.
Pixie, eventually, figured this out. After she had sniffed all of the yuckies behind my dishwasher.

So, now the mouse is behind my couch. As are seven pillows, 4 blankets, 2 urp cloths, a bag of yarn, and a table. I removed all of the soft things while Dale waited to see if the mouse would run out. No, it didn't. Queen cat Mindy was annoyed at being disturbed (she was relaxing under the table), so she meandered out.

I put Pixie back behind the couch. The mouse ran behind the piano. Dale moved the piano. The mouse ran under the fish tank. Pixie remained behind the couch.

At this point, I have no kitchen because it is full of appliances. I have a living room floor filled with soft and cat-furry blankets and pillows.

I decided to give up and go sew. Dale had to go out as well. He set a trap under the dishwasher, since our feline mouse control was a bit ineffective. And then he went to work. But, I only had one seam to do on Charli's costume before I needed to cut some more fabric...in the living room.

Well, my computer is very hard to ignore. I sat down to check the weather & my e-mail. And heard the mouse behind my desk. Out comes all of my "filing" system. Out comes the printer cabinet. Out comes my desk. No mouse.

And that only left the fridge. Which is not a good place to have a mouse. The fridge moved out. Pixie noticed this time and tried to get the mouse, but it had hidden underneath the large and heavy appliance.

I went to cut the fabric, realizing full well that now I had every appliance out from the wall...and of course, that the dust bunnies had all multiplied in their secretive habitat since the last time I had done that. Add to that the various bits of mouse scat (which is not a good thing) and I would have to go find my bleach spray bottle.

I finished sewing most of Joelle's costume, hemmed Dale's pants and returned to my kitchen to bleach the back of my appliances.

Yes, the backs. The part that no one ever sees. But, spraying the mouse scat with diluted bleach before cleaning it is our best defence against Hantavirus. And since I had to do that anyway, well, bleach was as good as anything else to remove the dried on food that drips behind things and the dustbunnies that have glued themselves to the linoleum.

Which means that I now have the cleanest appliance backs of anyone I know.

Pixie, incidentally, caught the mouse while I was eating my lunch. She took it to the bathroom, so Dale just closed the door on the two animals in there. Then he went in and removed the mouse, since Pixie doesn't actually kill and eat mice in the house, she just plays with them. She just kills them outside and leaves them as doormats for us.

Maybe today I'll clean the front of the appliances...