It's in the walls
2021 04 24
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I live in an old building that has hollow walls of wood and plaster. This means that things have occasionally moved in other than humans. Most of the times it's mice. One time it was a bat, that I had to carefully corral into a cardboard box and escort outside where I moved him into the garbage shed because there's lots of tasty, fat insects to snack on sometimes.
A few months ago there was a single mouse, which is surprising, because usually when you get one, you get a family. I don't know where this one was coming from, but it must have been travelling far enough that it wasn't bringing the fam along for the ride. Interestingly, the damned thing had a predictable schedule as to when it would come to visit. I created some traps with narrow cardboard boxes and peanut butter. Contrary to popular belief, cheese is not the best mouse enticement tool. Peanut butter is best, and if you couple that with a chunk of cheap chocolate, so much the better if you don't mind being a potential murderer, as milk chocolate is poisonous to mice.
I eventually did catch the little bugger and escort it outside also, and have not heard from any such creatures since. What has happened, however, is now I'm hyper-vigilant and hyper-aware of any sound that isn't "normal" to my environment - and with an old, hollow-walled building you get more than your fair share of unnatural noises. Thumps, bumps, clunks, and pipes, which turn out to be whatever the neighbours are doing, or the fridge is being especially noisesome that day. But no mice.
Of course, now that I've said that…