The Mouse Trap

Rodents in the coach? Fortunately that has not happened to us so far. We have had lots of insect invasions in our coach. Midgets. Spiders. Mosquitoes. But no rodents.

The absolute worst insect invasion in our coach? These guys:

Stink bugs.

I really, really hate them.

They hail from Asia. They were accidentally released into North America and, come Fall, they will make their way into houses and motorcoaches because they hate the cold. Last year we had hundreds of them in our coach. They entered the coach in October. And they elected to leave the coach as we arrived in Florida.

Every day for months on end there would be a half dozen or so stink bugs crawling on the walls and on the floor.

They are called stink bugs because they stink when attacked. Thankfully they do not bite. They are surprisingly large. My preferred method of dispatching these annoying insects? A Dyson vacuum. Crushing them causes a stink. Using a vacuum does not.

We have been invaded by these bugs every year over the past three years.

What was the topic of this post again? Oh yes. Mouse traps.

As I said, we have yet to be invaded by mice in our coach. From what I gather, it is a fairly common annoyance for many RVers. And mice can really damage the wiring of a coach. I’ve read all sorts of tactics that people use to ward off the mice from entering the coach. I have not read about as many tactics for trapping mice once they get inside the coach.

I have found what I think is a sure fire solution to trap a mouse.

These:

Lindt chocolate balls.

We had a bowl of Lindt chocolate balls on our TV stand for the Christmas holidays. Every day, there were fewer and fewer chocolate balls in the bowl. I thought Lorraine was eating them. Lorraine thought I was eating them. It turns out neither one of us was eating them.

The mice were eating them.

One morning I was sitting in my favourite chair in our family room. The chair is in front of a large floor to ceiling window and provides an awesome view of the lake. I love to sit in that chair and enjoy the view while catching up on the news.

I heard a strange rustling sound that morning.

It was the sound of a Lindt chocolate ball hitting the floor and then unwrapping itself.

Odd. How did a Lindt chocolate ball eject itself from the bowl? And how was it unwrapping itself? Surely this cannot be normal behaviour for a Lindt chocolate ball.

And then I saw it.

The mouse.

We have a mouse in the house. A mouse in the house taking one of our Lindt chocolate balls.

The horror. The horror.

I was so excited by this development that I raced into the bedroom to give Lorraine the news.

I should have remembered though that I wake up at 5:30 in the morning. I don’t think that Lorraine was all that keen to hear the news that early in the morning.

What to do?

We have to trap the mouse.

And what should we use for bait?

A Lindt chocolate ball.

We set the trap that night and look at what happened.

You can see the remnants of the Lindt chocolate ball wrapper as the trap not only shattered the chocolate ball but, I imagine, did an equally effective job on the mouse.

No more mouse.

But wait.

There were more.

Many more.

Many, many more.

Mice.

We decided to set another trap that evening.

Another dead mouse the next day.

Okay. Perhaps we should set another trap.

We did.

Another dead mouse.

Perhaps we should set two traps.

And we did.

Two dead mice.

Good grief. This was starting to get expensive. Lindt chocolate balls are not cheap!

After dispatching no less than five mice, we finally exhausted the supply of rodents in the house. We have set traps the past several evenings and no dead mice.

They did seem to love Lindt chocolate balls.

Something to keep in mind if we ever need to trap mice in our coach.