Just don’t let mice smell this: Fear

I try not to be squeamish. I was raised by a strong woman, and I'm working on becoming one myself. So the first time I saw a mouse in my kitchen, I kept an eye on it as it ran into a crevice beside my radiator pipe, I quickly retrieved some steel wool, and I calmly plugged the hole.

Problem solved.

For the night.

The next day, I was sitting writing at the table when I saw something dash across the floor. I tiptoed over and peered underneath the dishwasher, but just as I caught sight of the twitching, whiskered nose, a second mouse emerged from beneath the oven and joined his friend under the washer.

I'm not afraid of one little mouse. Two mice are a different story.

I called my mom.

"Call your super," she said.

"I feel bad bothering him." I hate to bother people. But I love to bother my mother.

"Don't feel bad, honey. It's his job. And I can't really do anything to help from here."

Just letting me bother her is a help, but practically speaking, I see her point.

An hour later, my super, Ervin, arrived. He's a lovable lug with an Eastern European accent. He said, "I'm surprise you have mouse problem with dog."

I looked over at Pip snoozing on the couch; he hadn't lifted his head since my super had come in.

Some surprise.

Ervin helped me pull out the oven and the dishwasher, where we discovered holes in the wall behind both appliances.

This is what counts as "newly renovated" in your first apartment.

After we plugged the holes, Ervin started to unpeel what looked like a giant sticker. "Glue trap. Mouse walk on glue, it stick. If one stick, it gonna make noise. Don't be scared. Call me. I come get it."

"That sounds sad."

He shrugged. "You can try get human traps."

He meant humane.

"Do they work?"

"No."

I thanked him and said goodbye. But I did feel sorry about the cruelty of a glue trap. So I went out and bought the old-fashioned wooden traps, and I even found some humane traps. I set both so the mice could choose their fate.

This mitigated my guilt, but I still hated having traps, period. Pip is unfazed by rodent activity but highly alert to peanut-butter activity, so he was whining behind the baby gate I'd put up to bar him from the booby-trapped kitchen.

I couldn't just sit and wait. My apartment was clean, but I started cleaning anyway, and the more I cleaned, the more convinced I became that everything was dirty. Every place was a new place touched by mouse feet.

My neighbor told me that mice hate the smell of Irish Spring soap, so I bought three bars, peeled them with my vegetable peeler, and sprinkled the soap shavings all over my bedroom, at the back of my drawers, around the laundry bin, in the corners of my closet.

It smelled like a teenage boy had exploded in my bedroom.

Then a friend on Facebook told me that mice hate the smell of crushed mint, so I bought fresh mint and made a mint moat around my bed. Within hours, it had wilted and dried out, so it looked like I was composting on my bedroom floor.

Then I read online that you must use 100 percent oil of peppermint. It said to apply it with a cotton ball. In retrospect, this direction probably indicated that I should use it sparingly, but I got carried away. When I was finished, my bedroom smelled like a candy-cane factory.

God knows if it's keeping the mice out, but at least my sinuses are clear.

That night, I tried to go to sleep in my Irish peppermint wonderland, but at every tiny sound, my body went rigid, my mind hyperalert, waiting for proof of mice. So despite the October chill, I turned on my rattling air conditioner, shoved cotton in my ears, and pulled a pillow over my head. Finally, I fell asleep and dreamt of a handsome Irish lad working in Santa's workshop.

Later, I awoke to a clicking sound. I reached for my glasses on the nightstand and slowly raised them to my face.

My worst nightmare was brought into focus:

A mouse, chomping on my baseboard.

It's on.