Mouse in the [tiny] House

I fully expected when I moved in to my accessory dwelling units (ADU) aka granny in a shed that I’d have a rodent problem. I mean it wasn’t originally intended for year-round use. Of course, it looked well insulated and secure, but I know how mice think—just like my youngest grandson—I think I can squeeze in there. If there is even a slight crack they can flatten their bodies and become like liquid and get through.

I have a few cracks by the door threshold where the foundation has settled and things aren’t quite level.

Believe me, I have no idea how he got in and I thought twice now that I’d scared him away—maybe—but he came back 2 nights in a row to hop into my dish bin where I deposited my ice cream bowl. Chocolate peanut butter. It was a major draw,

I could hear the rattle of my spoon clinking inside the residue-glazed bowl. I imagined the creature, like the cats over at my daughter’s house licking the dirty dishes resting inside the sink, enjoying what little was left of the ice cream. It wasn’t cute.

I wanted that mouse gone.

I knew I’d been lucky to have lived here two and a half years without a mouse. In Chicago, living in a 10-story highrise, mice were a regular thing. My daughter berated me: You should be used to this!

Yes, but never willingly.

What do you expect? You live in the backyard with the trees, garden, various mulch!

I know, I know. I’m on their turf. But it needs to go. The tiny house is not big enough for the both of us. (If it was just one!)

She picked up a glue board at Home Depot. The directions said to dispose of the catch humanely—and I wondered what their criteria was for that—I mean the very idea of a glue board is to live catch and let them die a horrible slow death. It’s like a trigger warning at an execution.

Last night he poked around inside the dish bin. I waited and a few minutes later came to understand he’d adhered to the glue board. I got out of bed and pushed the glue board with him still on it, like stuck to a life raft (the opposite, I’m afraid), with a broom out my door.

This morning the whole thing was gone.

I went outside to look around, but it had snowed last night and I didn’t want to get on the ground and look under the deck. Then I saw a Siamese cat (a neighbor’s?) by a forsythia bush. Maybe he got it??? But where was the glue board???

Anyway, I’m trying to live with myself for doing this AND at the same time enjoy a sense of relief that he’s gone.