Invasion of the squeekers

The "good neighbor" Mel told me a while back, that for every mouse you see, add nine more that your aren't seeing.
I saw three in our house yesterday. Yeah, you can do the math, I already did, and it makes me sick.


I swear those little creatures can squeeze through anything! We even saw one little mouse crawling up our fireplace screen, from the inside! So nasty. Next thing we know, he is peeling out across the wood floor and somehow made it under the stove.
Every time I turn on a light, I see some little germified creature skidding across the floor in a mad dash to get to who-knows-where. Ben and I think they must sit in the dark counting to three and getting their adrenaline up before the blast out of there and go into another hiding place. They go so fast!
Some nights, we will be watching a movie and hear a "crunch, crunch" coming from the pantry. I always tip-toe over there with our pro-mouser (the dog) and throw open the door. I never see a mouse, but I have had to throw away three bags of flour already and a bag of powdered sugar.
Aside from the food, our biggest fear is the sickening chance that they will make their way into the gerbil cage and mate. Can you imagine a gerbil-mouse. EEEWWW!

With the Swine Flu and the mouse infestation, I bet all of you think our house is this dirty, cluttered, germ ridden dump. But I promise you, we keep our house really clean. Truly! I should know, I am the clean fanatic.
We deep clean it every Saturday, and throughout the week, I am always cleaning something. This Saturday we disinfected every surface possible and then went back over it all with normal cleaner. Our house was in excellent condition when we got here, and it still is in awesome condition. We love this house.

Anyway, so yesterday I needed some flour and I went to the pantry and pulled out a bag. The flour dumped ALL OVER the floor. I turned it over only to find a nice little mouse hole in the bag. 5 minutes later, I grabbed the powdered sugar only to have it dump all over as well. Again, another hole! GGGRRRR Cleaning flour and powdered sugar is the worst.
The last straw was when the dog food dumped all over the laundry room when I was getting ready to feed Chamonix. RARRR!

So, we set out the mouse traps. You know, those things that you put food on, and they snap down on the neck of the mouse, killing it instantly. No blood, no pain. Quick and simple. YEAH RIGHT!

Growing up, we had these in one of our houses. I remember every detail of opening a door only to see a mouse flopping over the place. It's insides were its outsides, and somehow it would still be alive. It's eyes would be bugging out of its head and I swear the thing would be looking at me pleading for help. It would make me sick. Not to mention the times of playing hide-and-seek, only to hear a loud snap followed by my brother or my cousin screaming bloody murder and running out with the trap securely stuck on their finger or toe.
Several times I would go around dis-engaging the traps, just to put myself and the mouse out of any misery. ooops, I don't think I ever told anyone that. They all thought we just had really smart mice in our house.

Last night, we placed one trap in the pantry and one under the stove.
After everyone was asleep, and I was up facebooking (pregnancy insomnia), I heard a loud SNAP. I froze.
The snap was proceeded by a flopping sound. The mouse was going nuts and I could feel the vomit rising in my throat.
I woke Ben up and told him to go put the poor creature out of its misery. He never fully awoke. I just got a look like I was crazy, and he went back to sleep. So, I got back on the computer and tried to ignore the noise. Then there was snap #2. That was it! I couldn't stand it.
I went to bed literally ready to barf at any given moment. I put my pillow over my ears, and somehow fell asleep.

When I awoke this morning, I sent Mary down the stairs first. Just in case the mice had flopped their way into plain view. Such a bad mom! She didn't scream or come running back up the stairs, so I slowly made my way down. There was a note on the counter from Ben.
"I took care of the mouse. Call me soon. Love ya. Ben"
FEW!

I called Ben and learned that he woke up this morning and remembered that I said something to him about a mouse in the middle of the night. Right.
He decided to check the trap, and of course, there it was. I learned the the trap only smashed the mouses hip. It took a long time to die. The other trap was missing the peanut butter, but no mouse. Few.
I still haven't been able to eat breakfast.

NO MORE MOUSE TRAPS FOR US! Seriously, who invented those things. Is there not anything a little less morbid, maybe a little more humane for both mouse and human?
If there is, believe me, I will find it.

I know I wouldn't appreciate going to eat a nice big spoonful of peanut butter only to get 1/2 my body smashed by a big metal bar. There is just something so wrong with that picture.