more about mice

I am not the only one around here to have unwelcome winter visitors. Monday, the music teacher and I exchanged stories. His run under the floor, while mine are in the ceilings and walls. Except when they're watching movies with me in the living room. Tuesday, another teacher sat down by me at our morning break and said, "Jennifer, last night I opened the kitchen drawer..." and I knew exactly what the rest of his story was. Over the past few days, we have discussed the various merits of poisons, glue traps, live traps and traditional tapettes. If I had a pet, I'd avoid the poison all together, but since I don't, I've been pretty liberal with it. But the old-fashioned traps work faster...

On my way to the store to get the traps, I noticed that there is quite a bit of work going on in the old school buildings behind my house. The charitable organization Restos du coeur set up shop in one a few weeks ago, ready to distribute food to the less fortunate all winter. As best I can tell, this happens on Tuesdays. In addition, it looks like at least one of the other two buildings will soon have new residents; there's a chantier interdit au public sign outside my big gate, forbidding trespassers on the work site. I will have to do some investigating to see who my new daytime neighbors will be. I can't help but wonder if all of this work has driven the mice, who have been living comfortably in the abandoned buildings for some time, into my house.