Okay, let's continue with the story.
(see other post for Parts 1 and 2)
So, I went to the store for some mouse eradication devices, and again, am confronted with a multitude of torture and death inducing contraptions. All I wanted was the little pellet filled decorative box, but I figured I might see if there was something a little more mouse-friendly or less death-inducing.
Well, after perusing for quite some time, I realized there were no decorative pellet boxes. There were also no catch-and-release traps. Apparently the Always Low Prices store knows the whole 'gather up your friends' trick with that one. So, I was presented with traditional wooden neck breaker traps, sticky traps, or these other things which kind of looked like traps with poison in them... a little mini-maze with a block of green poison, with a see-through lid!
Now, thinking back, I'm pretty amazed at how utterly dumb I can be at times. I'm going to say that I was confused due to the trauma of my situation, but I secretly know that I was suffering from a pretty severe case of the blonde when I was in the store.
After reading and re-reading the back of the various boxes, I decided to buy some disposable poison traps, which were child, but not household pet, safe. I decided on the disposable ones, because the other one had one trap with many poison refills.... and here's the kicker, folks..... I didn't want to buy that one because I didn't like the thought of having to un-wedge a fat bloated mouse carcass from the tiny poison maze on a daily basis. Plus, if there were 432 children to contend with, the 8 refills would surely not be enough. Yanking on the dead tail of some mouse that has pooped and bled (because you know, that's what the pictures on the trap boxes show...) did not seem like a fun thing.
What I didn't realize is that I was not purchasing actual traps; they were just glorified decorative boxes with the poison lodged within. I had actually been wondering how strong the poison must be if the mouse died before he could even wriggle back out of the contraption. Yes. Blonde.
Upon returning home and reading the directions another twenty times, and searching the box thoroughly for some other set of directions, I placed the traps, with a lot of doubt and hand-washing. It seems like there should have been some more set up involved, or at least little drawings showing the mouse eating the poison then running away, but there weren't.
It's now a few days later, and I think the mice are on to me. I only noticed tiny little poison crumbs in one of the traps, and surely that's not enough to decimate the mouse village. It's enough to make me paranoid and frantic that my cat is going to catch some partially poisoned mouse and die a horrible death before my eyes, however.
But, that's enough of the mouse story for now. Hmm, this is turning out to be longer than I expected. Because now, we have the finale of the infestation story, which involves as yet unidentified flying insects in my pantry. And here you thought that fleas and mice were enough! Noo, no, there's more!
First, let me tell you that doing a Google search on something like, 'what are the brown flying insects in my house' can be pretty enlightening. And mortifying. It's probably one of those things that are better left un-investigated. Like, when you see a 60 Minutes program on those invisible-to-the-human-eye-and-there's-nothing-you-can-do-about-it mites that live in your mattress. Anyway, after learning about every single insect, spider, mite, and UFO that could be residing in my home, I still could not find the exact genus of bug that I discovered floating in my bowl of cereal one day. (and on a side note, why did it have to be AFTER I'd eaten 90% of the cereal?)
I actually happen to be pretty obsessive about pantry and lazy-Susan items; flour, sugar, pancake mix, they are all sealed up with upside-down extra zip lock bags, never left open, unattended. The cereal boxes have been less fortunate, and yes, I'm going to blame my kid for this one, because I always notice that the inner bags are left open, and the tab tops of the boxes are rarely secured when I go to retrieve them.
Anyway, I am not a squeamish girl. I am not frightened of spiders and critters, I'm actually rather fascinated by them. After viewing 227 pages of insects and spiders, magnified X10 for my inquiring mind, however, the fascination became a little less palatable. I actually could not finish my cup o'ramen, which, for Pete's sake, are hermetically sealed with that plastic wrap and the paper lid which never pulls off cleanly. Bugs are neat and all, but not when I'm ingesting them, unintentionally.
I vacuumed my entire pantry and lazy Susan, dumped nearly every product whether opened or not, and used a mighty concoction of bleach spray to complete the process. And then I vacuumed again. I have purchased air-tight containers. I have vacuumed again. And sprayed.
You would think that this would ease my mind a bit, but it has not. I still see an occasional as yet unidentified brown flying insect, and let me tell you, my wrath knows no bounds. I'm actually at the point where I'm verbally taunting them before I gleefully snuff out their previously leisure filled lives. I don't know why they are still hanging about; there is nothing for them to nest in, nothing to feed on, nothing that could attract them, unless they are partial to green poison crumbs and a little dust now and then.
Anyway, I'm giving this until the weekend to be sorted out. If I am not critter-free by then, I'm just going to move to the woods. Give those critters a taste of their own medicine. See how they like it. Yeah.
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