Nibble, Nibble Like a Mouse... Who's That Nibbling at My House?

Anna Marie and three friends had a slumber party at our home about a week ago. We were still in new-baby sleep-deprivation mode, and I'm not sure what we were thinking. Really. The sleep-deprivation is clearly responsible for some seriously questionable parental decisions. Accordingly, we were deprived of ever-more sleep while the gaggle of girls giggled the night away.

To make matters more interesting for the girls and the sleepy parents, we discovered at some point in the evening that there was a mouse in our walls chewing away on our wiring.

How did we know this, you ask? Well, we heard him. Loud and clear. Behind the thermostat.

     Nibble, nibble (mouse).

     Giggle, giggle (girls).

     Nibble, MUNCH (mouse).

     Giggle, SCREAM (girls).

We also saw him. Yep. It took nothing more than to remove the cover from the thermostat to see his beady little eyes staring out at us.  Eeeew.

There was no way to reach him or grab him, so we put the cover on the thermostat and vowed to set traps and call pest control in the morning.

The nibbling racket (and it was, indeed, a racket!) continued into the wee hours. We were exhausted and finally fell asleep. Apparently, the girls did NOT.

Upon awaking in the morning, we were informed that our illustrious guest, Heather, had decided sometime in the middle of the night, to pray to good St. Francis to quiet the noisy, sleep-depriving mouse. Heather and her comrades informed us confidently in the morning, that St. Francis had, indeed, taken care of the mouse almost immediately upon the completion of her prayer. According to Heather, he was dead.

"Yeah, right," I must have been thinking (and telegraphing), because Heather then proceeded to look me in the eye and say, "Look for yourself, Mrs. Leone," as she nodded toward the thermostat. It was not without trepidation that I opened the face of the thermostat.

I was stunned at what I saw:  The mouse, its teeth firmly clenched around the wires chewed bare, lay dead.

Electrocuted.

I'm telling you, the strangest things happen at our house.

At anyone else's house, there'd be a mouse and a trap.

At our house, it's a mouse, in the thermostat, at a slumber party, during which our devout twelve-year-old friend Heather prays to St. Francis (notwithstanding his reputation as an animal lover), and a mousy electrocution immediately ensues.

Oh, we have photos. Surprised?  (Never let it be said that this blog only includes photos of the kids...)

 

Disclaimer Number One: Our thermostat is not set to 64 degrees. More like 70. Mr. Rodent was apparently wreaking havoc with our temperature settings.

Disclaimer Number Two: Yours Truly had nothing to do with prying open the jaw and removing said electrocuted mouse from the wall. Thank God for husbands. Amen.