My worst nightmare

It was the middle of one cold winter's night, when I woke to the sound of plastic being moved. Being still half asleep and hoping I was wrong, I kept my eyes shut and tried to believe that it was a dream. But before long I made myself turn the light on, and yet, there was nothing to be seen.

The next night, about the same time, I again heard the noise, but this time there were other accompanying noises, scurrying and crunching (not really) but when I got up to investigate, I found my packet of sweet oat cereal had a huge hole in the bottom. Again, no other evidence. (It turned
out there was lots of evidence, but my vision in those days was very poor.)

Next day, I threw the cereal away, and called the pest people, who promised to come out as
soon as possible - which ended up being the next day. But I wasn't going to live through another such night, now that I knew, so I moved into the spare bedroom - shut and blocked all the doors with huge stacks of books. Needless to say, I have had my breakfast downstairs from then on. I was very brave and went into the mouse room, and put aluminum foil in the hole I found in the shower tiles. They had eaten through the grouting.

I should tell you about the cereal. To save me time and climbing the stairs, I had the habit of boiling a kettle upstairs, and having my coffee which I drink black, and my cereal which I drink with just a small amount of hot water on it. I had been doing this for months, maybe even a year. I had never had this problem before. Never had mice in this house before, but I had experienced them in most of our other residences at some time or other.

The first question the pest man asked me was, "what is the situation with next door?".I live in a semi-detatched bungalow, and the other half had been empty for years, but it had been sold, and now the new owner was doing the property up, so there were lots of banging noises as the old kitchen and bathroom bits were got rid of. "The mice probably came from there. You should tell the guy." So I said I would. He found lots of droppings that I hadn't seen, as my carpet sort of absorbed
them up. Part of the problem was that when I had my horrible experience with the heating and hot water systems a few years ago, the rogue plumber had decided not to box in the pipes in that
bathroom, and had done a very shoddy job all together.

There seemed to be only one entry but the pestman put down poison in the bathroom next to my
bedroom, and in my room, in the hallway, and kitchen downstairs, in the cellar area and in the garage. .He said my aluminum foil blocks wouldn't do any good at all, so put in wire wool. He said when he came back in three weeks time, we would know more about where they were coming from. He also told me to get the air vents near the bottom of the house fitted with screens.

I kind of felt like he hadn't done much for his £165 call out fee, which covered 3 visits at 3 week intervals, but I supposed if the poison did its work, then I would have paid a lot more to not have mice again.

I did call the new neighbour, but he seemed very disinterested as he was going on holiday. I called him again a few weeks later when he was back, and he was very rude to me on the phone. So we never did find out if he had mice too.

The following night, sleeping in the spare room, I again couldn't sleep, because there were rustling noises in the skirting boards, which I took to be the mice coming into the bathroom despite the wire mesh, and getting poisoned, hopefully, and then all of them were were (in my mind) going crazy behind the skirting board while the poison caused them to bleed to death. But all the doors were firmly shut and blocked with stacks of books, so I knew I was safe. But it wasn't nice. The next
night was better, but still some noise, and then it all stopped, except for the smell - which was only in that bathroom, but it lasted several weeks. Apparently mice urine was the cause..

I luckily got my daughter who likes to clean to come and deal with the bedroom From now on, the mouse room was going to be where she and her family slept, so it was in her interest to do a good job. I did do some vacuuming before she came, and as I pushed the long thing under the desk, I did
feel something squishy, so there might be one mouse who stayed behind while I was doing all the blocking, and died in my room, but I didn't tell my daughter about that.

When I told my friend Clare about my mice, she said that she had had them often, until she
bought a machine that emits a noise that scares them away. You plug it into the mains and it stays on all the time but it doesn't make a noise I can here. It is supposed to work for insects too. She said she had used it now for several years and hadn't had any mice since. So I invested in one of those too. The mesh for covering the air bricks came out at over £100 for the product. My daughter asked the man who was doing my garden at the time if he would install the ten of them, thinking it would be a 10 minute job. It took him all day and he charged £140 for doing it.

Not much happened until it was time for the second visit of the pestman. He had a look at all the places where he had set the poison traps - and found, as was logical, that the poison in the bathroom had been taken, and a little bit from the dish in my bedroom. Nothing at all from those in the hall or kitchen, but quite a lot from the garage, although the gardeners who had their tea breaks in the garage, had kicked over one of the dishes. The basement poison had evidence of lots taken, so he put two new ones down there, and kept the rest in situ.

And when the final visit came, all the traps showed none taken, and I was officially mouse free. But as I write this, sitting in the "mouse room" I still feel a little bit uncomfortable.