I have Mice! How Ironic
Monday, May 12th, 2008 
About 3 weeks ago around 9pm my wife told me that she heard some scratching in the ceiling of my son’s bedroom as she was putting him to bed. I responded as a typical husband/homeowner, I just shrugged my shoulders and told her she was hearing things. Then about a week later she wakes me up at 1am telling me that she heard the noise again in the ceiling of our bedroom. Sure enough I hear the tell-tale noise of an animal scurrying around in my attic. I mumbled something to the effect of “this animal picked the wrong house” and went back to sleep.
So the next morning my wife is asking me all about it.
Her: Is it a squirrel?
Me: No, there aren’t any openings in the roof big enough for squirrels to enter. It’s probably just mice.
Her: No way! The sounds were way too loud to be mice! (at least 50% of our mouse customers say this exact phrase)
Me: You sound like one of my customers!! (we both laugh) I’ll go take a look at it when I get home tonight.
About two weeks later (that’s how long it takes me to respond to things around my own house) I ventured up into my attic and found a couple of mouse droppings and some little mouse tunnels in my blown insulation directly over these bedrooms. Now I own a big, old house with two chimneys and balloon construction (hollow walls with no insulation) so it didn’t surprise me that I could have a few mice in my attic.
So I started to think about what I was going to do. Having mice in my own attic gives me a great opportunity to test out some new mouse traps. I have several different types of live-catch mouse traps that have been sent to me by different manufacturers from all across the country. I have always wanted to try them but like any live-catch trap they must be checked daily. Since this is not a cost-effective way of solving a mouse problem we have never used them at any of our customer’s houses.
On Friday I went back up to my attic armed with 4 different types of traps and set them in the areas where we have been hearing the noises. I didn’t catch any over the weekend. I will continue to check them every morning and hopefully I will get a feel for which trap works best. I will post an update once I have finished my research.
In the end i’ll undoubtably end up having to mouse-proof my own house. You can imagine how excited I am about that.
**Update! 5-22-08 5 traps set in attic with no results. However the mice are now starting to show up in my basement. Time to move some traps**
Matt Grady