Who you gonna call?!

The exterminator. That's exactly who we called today when a small, furry, lightning fast mouse scurried across the living room floor this afternoon!

It all started when we came home this afternoon. We were both relaxing, me on the computer and Justin watching TV. All of the sudden Justin yells, "What the hell was that!" It wasn't until he said those words that I saw it, but as soon as he did, I saw it clear as day: a tiny, gray mouse! It had run out from under our gas fireplace, around the corner in the living room, across the kitchen floor and under the vacuum (which happened to be in the kitchen for some unknown reason). Justin got up and ran into the kitchen.

Once we realized that the little fur ball had run up inside the vacuum, he tried to get the vacuum outside through the sliding glass door which was only about 4 feet away. Unfortunately the movement of the vacuum scarred the mouse and he promptly ran out of the vacuum and back the same route he took to get there, only backwards. It was across the kitchen, around the corner in the living room and back into the gas fireplace!

After much ado we finally looked in the fireplace only to see the makings of a nest! This was not reassuring. So we called the exterminator. It was tough to find one who would be able to make it out today since we live in an area that is considered "rural" by most "city-folk". We finally got the great people at Barrier Lawn & Pest to come out and rid us of our fuzzy little friend. The great guy who came to our rescue took apart the fireplace and cleaned out the nest that we found. Not surprisingly, the nest was comprised mostly of dog hair and carpet fuzz which the mouse had gotten out of... wait for it.... wait for it... you guessed it: the vacuum!

So once the exterminator cleaned it all out, he had determined that the nest was not active and that the mouse we had seen was likely the only one there was. Apparently because of our location, directly across from an open field, we are a prime destination for field mice when the weather gets cold. After all was said and done, he set a couple traps, but said that we had most likely scared the mouse away when we chased him across the house!

Whew!! It was only a half day for work, but I think I'm more tired tonight than I have been the last few weeks!