Posted January 29, 2017
I caught the unwanted visitor that was roaming around my house and their heart which allegedly can beat faster than 1300bpm is no longer beating (albeit sadly not because of anything I did personally).
Background: Since 2012 roughly I've had a problem with mice in my house. Not a huge problem, just one mouse about once a year or so that I discovered and took care of up until about 15 months ago at which point I happen to have gotten swarmed by the things. At first I used a combination of commercial traps and home made traps and managed to get the problem under control quickly. Since then I've bought several other higher end commercial traps that work much better at catching the vermin multiple at a time without the need for resetting or rebaiting traps.
I should also add that before anyone is tempted to reply with potentially helpful suggestions such as "get a cat" or "get a ferret" or "use a pail with water and a tin can on a hanger wire" or other awesome suggestions - if there is a way to catch mice that someone has ever thought of in the history of catching mice - I have watched 20 videos on how to do it on Youtube already and quite probably already tried it out, so there is virtually zero information out there on catching mice, killing mice, preventing mice in the first place etc. that I'm not already aware of. But, if you (anyone) were thinking of offering a suggestion, I thank you nonetheless for the kind thought - but - I have it under control. :)
However, things have taken a turn to the strange now...
I saw out of the corner of my eye movement last week and knew right away "more visitors", however all the traps are armed and ready to go so usually that just means I may have a roamer for up to 2 days which is the longest they usually last until they succumb to one of my various traps or another. Sure enough a day later I inspected the traps and found one of my electrocution traps had fried a young deer mouse which I disposed of and reset the trap. I couldn't help but think to myself however that the darting image I saw days before was much darker brown and didn't look like a deer mouse at all. Ah well, they move fast, perhaps my eyes deceived me.
The next day I heard a noise behind me and turned my head to see the dark brown image across the room, confirming that I did indeed see such a thing prior. I threw something at it and it scurried off quickly to where I couldn't reach it as is normally the case. Ah well, the traps will do their job with patience I thought and went back to my prior task at hand. A while later I was going through a box of stuff and found a few sticky traps kicking around and decided there was no benefit to me in hoarding them, and I might as well set out sticky traps as well. I cut them in half and loaded them with a cashew each, which has done the trick every time so far.
Many hours later while watching youtube videos I heard a strange but faint noise and wasn't sure if it was part of the video or from within the room but it sounded like it was behind me. I turned the sound off .... nothing... rewound the video and played it a few times and the noise was not present so I assumed the noise was in the room here, but it was indeed a strange noise. I never heard it in isolation and it wasn't very loud so I couldn't make heads or tails from it really and just let it go.
Another hour passed and I had heard this mystery noise a couple more times very briefly, also while computer sounds were playing and it went away after silencing the computer. I decided to go check the traps and lo and behold I noticed that one sticky trap was gone!
But it didn't go very far. It had been moved about a foot away hiding under something else in the corner of the room, and I could see that a dark brown critter was on it. I smiled in victory. That part of the room wasn't well lit so I didn't notice right away the oddity I was about to discover... I went and grabbed my pliers and returned to pick up the trap and bring it out into the light. Our little friend was firmly stuck to the trap and not going anywhere. All this time I didn't really look too closely at the thing but I placed it on the table and went to tend to a few other things I needed to take care of while deciding what to do with my newly caught visitor.
When I returned and actually looked at the thing under the light - my jaw dropped in shock and surprise as this mouse was unlike any I had ever seen before! It had no eyes or ears whatsoever! It was basically a regular looking mouse with a head with a mouth and no ears or eyes or other facial features. It creeped me right the hell out! I had never seen such a thing before and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. :)
Some of you reading this are probably laughing, knowing what I was looking at - but I had never seen such a thing before and it creeped me out due to this. My first thought was that it was a genetic mutant retard mouse or something born with defects, however after thinking about that for a while I realized that such an abomination would be killed and probably eaten by the parents quickly and almost certainly would be unable to fend for itself in the wild and probably not even survive with the aide of parents either. The other possibility was that it was a different variety of mouse that I'd never seen before, or perhaps even some other creature I was blissfully unaware of.
Enter The Google(TM). Search term "mouse with no eyes or ears" and with minimal research I discovered that what I had caught was in fact not a mouse at all, but rather it turns out to be a "Northern Short Tailed Shrew". I called just about 15 people on the phone to discuss and only about 3 people ever heard of a shrew before, and nobody at all had ever seen one before neither in real life nor on TV. So they are to say the least "uncommon" to human eyes where I live here in Northern Ontario, even if they're actually common woodland critters out of sight in the woods. :)
It turns out that they are also the only mammal in North America which has a bite that includes poisonous venom that can kill small animals/prey, which I personally found rather unsettling. Apparently the poison isn't harmful to humans but their bite is rather painful because of it and they are apparently rather aggressive towards anything they consider either food or a threat - hence "The Taming of the Shrew".
I watched some videos of these tiny little creatures killing snakes and other animals many times their size. I'm not afraid of mice or other such critters per se, but this damn thing has me wanting to jump from one piece of furniture to another so the monster under the bed wont get me, like when I was a kid. LOL
Today I talked with numerous local people about it and showed them some photos as well and nobody here has ever seen nor heard of them either, although some were familiar with the term shrew and knew that it was some kind of animal.
So now I get to rejoice over one of the only poisonous mammals on the continent taking up residence inside my house and meeting his untimely demise. I'll be on the lookout for more of these damn alien looking things and eradicating them as I find them however although this was probably a real fluke encounter to be honest. Monday my property manager is getting a phone call to have pest control go over the outside of the house with a fine toothed comb to find whatever entrance has to exist out there where mice and now SHREWS of all things are coming into my house. What's next, kangaroos in my living room? LOL
Anyhow, I thought some of you would be amused by the story.
I took photos but they're not processed onto the computer yet so here's a link to an online video of one of the creepy ass looking critters that met his demise here last night, where it kills and eats a rattle snake!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNowlueg4H4
Background: Since 2012 roughly I've had a problem with mice in my house. Not a huge problem, just one mouse about once a year or so that I discovered and took care of up until about 15 months ago at which point I happen to have gotten swarmed by the things. At first I used a combination of commercial traps and home made traps and managed to get the problem under control quickly. Since then I've bought several other higher end commercial traps that work much better at catching the vermin multiple at a time without the need for resetting or rebaiting traps.
I should also add that before anyone is tempted to reply with potentially helpful suggestions such as "get a cat" or "get a ferret" or "use a pail with water and a tin can on a hanger wire" or other awesome suggestions - if there is a way to catch mice that someone has ever thought of in the history of catching mice - I have watched 20 videos on how to do it on Youtube already and quite probably already tried it out, so there is virtually zero information out there on catching mice, killing mice, preventing mice in the first place etc. that I'm not already aware of. But, if you (anyone) were thinking of offering a suggestion, I thank you nonetheless for the kind thought - but - I have it under control. :)
However, things have taken a turn to the strange now...
I saw out of the corner of my eye movement last week and knew right away "more visitors", however all the traps are armed and ready to go so usually that just means I may have a roamer for up to 2 days which is the longest they usually last until they succumb to one of my various traps or another. Sure enough a day later I inspected the traps and found one of my electrocution traps had fried a young deer mouse which I disposed of and reset the trap. I couldn't help but think to myself however that the darting image I saw days before was much darker brown and didn't look like a deer mouse at all. Ah well, they move fast, perhaps my eyes deceived me.
The next day I heard a noise behind me and turned my head to see the dark brown image across the room, confirming that I did indeed see such a thing prior. I threw something at it and it scurried off quickly to where I couldn't reach it as is normally the case. Ah well, the traps will do their job with patience I thought and went back to my prior task at hand. A while later I was going through a box of stuff and found a few sticky traps kicking around and decided there was no benefit to me in hoarding them, and I might as well set out sticky traps as well. I cut them in half and loaded them with a cashew each, which has done the trick every time so far.
Many hours later while watching youtube videos I heard a strange but faint noise and wasn't sure if it was part of the video or from within the room but it sounded like it was behind me. I turned the sound off .... nothing... rewound the video and played it a few times and the noise was not present so I assumed the noise was in the room here, but it was indeed a strange noise. I never heard it in isolation and it wasn't very loud so I couldn't make heads or tails from it really and just let it go.
Another hour passed and I had heard this mystery noise a couple more times very briefly, also while computer sounds were playing and it went away after silencing the computer. I decided to go check the traps and lo and behold I noticed that one sticky trap was gone!
But it didn't go very far. It had been moved about a foot away hiding under something else in the corner of the room, and I could see that a dark brown critter was on it. I smiled in victory. That part of the room wasn't well lit so I didn't notice right away the oddity I was about to discover... I went and grabbed my pliers and returned to pick up the trap and bring it out into the light. Our little friend was firmly stuck to the trap and not going anywhere. All this time I didn't really look too closely at the thing but I placed it on the table and went to tend to a few other things I needed to take care of while deciding what to do with my newly caught visitor.
When I returned and actually looked at the thing under the light - my jaw dropped in shock and surprise as this mouse was unlike any I had ever seen before! It had no eyes or ears whatsoever! It was basically a regular looking mouse with a head with a mouth and no ears or eyes or other facial features. It creeped me right the hell out! I had never seen such a thing before and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. :)
Some of you reading this are probably laughing, knowing what I was looking at - but I had never seen such a thing before and it creeped me out due to this. My first thought was that it was a genetic mutant retard mouse or something born with defects, however after thinking about that for a while I realized that such an abomination would be killed and probably eaten by the parents quickly and almost certainly would be unable to fend for itself in the wild and probably not even survive with the aide of parents either. The other possibility was that it was a different variety of mouse that I'd never seen before, or perhaps even some other creature I was blissfully unaware of.
Enter The Google(TM). Search term "mouse with no eyes or ears" and with minimal research I discovered that what I had caught was in fact not a mouse at all, but rather it turns out to be a "Northern Short Tailed Shrew". I called just about 15 people on the phone to discuss and only about 3 people ever heard of a shrew before, and nobody at all had ever seen one before neither in real life nor on TV. So they are to say the least "uncommon" to human eyes where I live here in Northern Ontario, even if they're actually common woodland critters out of sight in the woods. :)
It turns out that they are also the only mammal in North America which has a bite that includes poisonous venom that can kill small animals/prey, which I personally found rather unsettling. Apparently the poison isn't harmful to humans but their bite is rather painful because of it and they are apparently rather aggressive towards anything they consider either food or a threat - hence "The Taming of the Shrew".
I watched some videos of these tiny little creatures killing snakes and other animals many times their size. I'm not afraid of mice or other such critters per se, but this damn thing has me wanting to jump from one piece of furniture to another so the monster under the bed wont get me, like when I was a kid. LOL
Today I talked with numerous local people about it and showed them some photos as well and nobody here has ever seen nor heard of them either, although some were familiar with the term shrew and knew that it was some kind of animal.
So now I get to rejoice over one of the only poisonous mammals on the continent taking up residence inside my house and meeting his untimely demise. I'll be on the lookout for more of these damn alien looking things and eradicating them as I find them however although this was probably a real fluke encounter to be honest. Monday my property manager is getting a phone call to have pest control go over the outside of the house with a fine toothed comb to find whatever entrance has to exist out there where mice and now SHREWS of all things are coming into my house. What's next, kangaroos in my living room? LOL
Anyhow, I thought some of you would be amused by the story.
I took photos but they're not processed onto the computer yet so here's a link to an online video of one of the creepy ass looking critters that met his demise here last night, where it kills and eats a rattle snake!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNowlueg4H4
