After being up all night online Friday, Saturday began for me when, having put myself down for a nap in the only available interval, I was instead woken after fifteen minutes by an unexpected floor-show: another mouse had found its way into our apartment, and Snip was cheerfully mauling it while Weasel looked on in disdain and Mum went chasing around with a butter tub trying to scoop up the victim. Eventually the mouse wound up in the butter tub, heaving for breath and looking pathetically cute.
This was the day of the lock-changing; at noon we went down to the lobby with Exhibit A (the dead mouse from Friday) and our new Exhibit B (the recovering victim in the butter tub), and presented them to the landlord. As it turns out, she was already aware of the mice. She was also working on the Other Creepycrawly Issue -- evidently the newish tenant in #107 had been running an unlicensed roach ranch, for which act of incivility they'd recently been tossed out, and Steps Are Being Taken. This did not stop me from going out and buying two syringes of 'Combat' gel to put around as a precaution in case the battle lines over on the other side of our U-shaped building from us should be breached, but it does make me feel marginally better RE the Abandonment Issues to know that at least she's not ignoring the problem like my father evidently did when I was a baby (roaches being the one situation in life where meeting the first incident with the nuclear option is not overreacting).
Another tenant happened by as we were discussing the dilemna of the second mouse still being alive and in our custody, and this woman offered to take it out to the country to release it humanely. So, what the heck, we gave her the butter tub. I'd rather not know.
Interesting tidbit of building gossip: Idiot Neighbors #3 in the apartment right next to us who liked to slam around and shout at all hours, were dealing drugs out of their apartment, not to mention they were the ones stealing from the storage lockers and on several occasions doing progressive amounts of violence to the laundry room to steal the quarters, and they have been tossed out. (But we never did recover Mum's handtruck.) So it seems as if the landlord is finally attempting to get on top of some things that have been let slide, which I approve of because we are almost caught up with the rent and so in less danger than previously of being swept up in the housecleaning measures. This still leaves us with Idiot Neighbors #1, who like to gather in their kitchen for loud conversations when I'm trying to work, and Idiot Neighbors #2 (the Ungrateful Felix and Consort) who I can at least close my windows on in winter, but I suppose this constitutes some improvement in circumstances. On top of which, we now have back-door locks we can get into from the outside, and, joy of joys, they even fixed the lights in the laundry room! Now if only people can remember to turn the lights off when they leave so they'll last longer...
And by gum, Sunday began almost the same way Saturday did: Mum's sister called to invite us to Thanksgiving, and as Mum was hanging up, she spotted that Snip had mouse #3 in her mouth! We are pretty sure now that they're getting in from the access panel to the bathroom pipes, which has fallen out; since repair of this involves moving a bookcase, though, we won't get to it before next Saturday. We'll just have to trust our little mouser's skillz until then. (Weasel, again, settled for watching. She knows Siamese are intended to be trophy cats and refuses to sully her paws with work.)
This victim also was merely being toyed with, and I eventually managed to get it into another butter tub. Since it was still alive and didn't look too wounded, although it had been limping in circles and may have had a hidden leg injury, I took it out to the park and put it out under a tree; it will probably die anyway, but they're too damn cute to just flush or stomp on...
We asked the vet if Snip's playing with filthy city mice was going to be a problem (IE was she going to need a tetanus shot or something); the vet says that so long as she's acting normally and not vomiting or staggering around, there's no need to bring her in, although we're supposed to keep an eye on her stools for evidence of tapeworms. Ew. I forgot to ask about exotic possibilities like hantavirus, I hope that's not an unfortunate oversight...
This was the day of the lock-changing; at noon we went down to the lobby with Exhibit A (the dead mouse from Friday) and our new Exhibit B (the recovering victim in the butter tub), and presented them to the landlord. As it turns out, she was already aware of the mice. She was also working on the Other Creepycrawly Issue -- evidently the newish tenant in #107 had been running an unlicensed roach ranch, for which act of incivility they'd recently been tossed out, and Steps Are Being Taken. This did not stop me from going out and buying two syringes of 'Combat' gel to put around as a precaution in case the battle lines over on the other side of our U-shaped building from us should be breached, but it does make me feel marginally better RE the Abandonment Issues to know that at least she's not ignoring the problem like my father evidently did when I was a baby (roaches being the one situation in life where meeting the first incident with the nuclear option is not overreacting).
Another tenant happened by as we were discussing the dilemna of the second mouse still being alive and in our custody, and this woman offered to take it out to the country to release it humanely. So, what the heck, we gave her the butter tub. I'd rather not know.
Interesting tidbit of building gossip: Idiot Neighbors #3 in the apartment right next to us who liked to slam around and shout at all hours, were dealing drugs out of their apartment, not to mention they were the ones stealing from the storage lockers and on several occasions doing progressive amounts of violence to the laundry room to steal the quarters, and they have been tossed out. (But we never did recover Mum's handtruck.) So it seems as if the landlord is finally attempting to get on top of some things that have been let slide, which I approve of because we are almost caught up with the rent and so in less danger than previously of being swept up in the housecleaning measures. This still leaves us with Idiot Neighbors #1, who like to gather in their kitchen for loud conversations when I'm trying to work, and Idiot Neighbors #2 (the Ungrateful Felix and Consort) who I can at least close my windows on in winter, but I suppose this constitutes some improvement in circumstances. On top of which, we now have back-door locks we can get into from the outside, and, joy of joys, they even fixed the lights in the laundry room! Now if only people can remember to turn the lights off when they leave so they'll last longer...
And by gum, Sunday began almost the same way Saturday did: Mum's sister called to invite us to Thanksgiving, and as Mum was hanging up, she spotted that Snip had mouse #3 in her mouth! We are pretty sure now that they're getting in from the access panel to the bathroom pipes, which has fallen out; since repair of this involves moving a bookcase, though, we won't get to it before next Saturday. We'll just have to trust our little mouser's skillz until then. (Weasel, again, settled for watching. She knows Siamese are intended to be trophy cats and refuses to sully her paws with work.)
This victim also was merely being toyed with, and I eventually managed to get it into another butter tub. Since it was still alive and didn't look too wounded, although it had been limping in circles and may have had a hidden leg injury, I took it out to the park and put it out under a tree; it will probably die anyway, but they're too damn cute to just flush or stomp on...
We asked the vet if Snip's playing with filthy city mice was going to be a problem (IE was she going to need a tetanus shot or something); the vet says that so long as she's acting normally and not vomiting or staggering around, there's no need to bring her in, although we're supposed to keep an eye on her stools for evidence of tapeworms. Ew. I forgot to ask about exotic possibilities like hantavirus, I hope that's not an unfortunate oversight...