Wednesday, August 5, 2009

There's a mouse/rat/gerbil/hamster in my condo!!!

Ok, I need your help!! Tonight I went to bed SUPER early - before 10:00. It. was. fahhhhhbulous.
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However, ironically it's now 1am and I am wide awake. Why? Around 12:30am, Mike woke me up to say that there was a mouse in our condo!!!! I immediately thought that he was crazy/hallucinating/dreaming/drunk, since I recently woke up in the middle of the night claiming that there was a bug in my bed mid-dream.
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But he was right!!! Luckily as he was telling me, said animal ran from the second bedroom into the hallway so I could see it. Then, it ran into the coat closet, then back into the hallway, where I was able to shoo it into the building hallway (not the one in my unit, but the communal hallway that connects to the rest of the condo units).
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So that the little critter couldn't get back in - because it was tiny enough to effortlessly squeak under the door and get back in - I blocked the crack under the door with two towels like they taught us to do in grade school if there is smoke in your building, lol.
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Now, my questions for you are:
1. What was this thing?!!??!?!

2. It looked like the picture above.... it honestly looked less like a nasty rat than it looked like a cute little gerbil or hamster. In fact, mid-attack I commented to Mike, "awww it's so cute!!"

3. Part of the reason I'm not sure if it was a mouse or a rat is becuase it had NO tail. Unless this guy lost it to the chef ("who chopped off their tales with a carving knife") in the nursing rhyme, I think that may means that it was instead a domesticated animal like a gerbil or hamster??? According to google, gerbils have tail too though, so that makes me think it could only have been a hamster. But if so it was a hamster baby, since it was pretty small.

4. Also, I'm wondering, if it WAS a wild animal and not someone's escaped pet, is it possible for a mouse to climb to the 8th floor???? I feel like that's pretty high.... we RARELY even get bugs up here, I suspect partially from being up so high.

5. What do i do about this?!?!?! If it was someone's escapee from their cage, I'm ok with this. It's still a bit gross that it was running around our place - who knows where it's little paws have been - but it's less offensive than if it was a wild animal straight from the dumpster from the sushi restaurant downstairs.
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If it is a wild mouse or rat - what do I do???? We joked that we should get a dog to ward them off (something we have wanted to do anyway, but we would just bump up the schedule!)..... aside from that, and cleaning, what should we do to make sure we don't have little mice babies? I just read how over 5 months, mice can have 100s and 100s of grandchildren. Niiiiiiiiiice.
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I want to figure out what this little guy was first so that I know what my plan of attack should be. Thanks for any tips! Now I'm wired and am going to go off and read my Google Reader ;) Good night!

4 comments:

  1. I would be super freaked out. A cat is much better at defending against mice versus a dog. My cat had to protect both me and my dog from a mouse.

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  2. OMG, I would have stayed glued to my bed and let my boyfriend chase it around! Mice and Bugs scare the crap out of me! Sounds like a ridiculous night!

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  3. wow what an interesting night you had, I'm guessing its definetely someones pet becasue a wild one couldn't get all the way to the eigth floor? I havea cat so it would have been ugly at my apartment:)

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  4. We had mice in my 5th floor apt when I first moved to Boston. . . I hope it was someone's pet though! I have a horribly irrational fear of small animals, including squirrels. Their movement freaks me out!

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