opinios

Isn't that how the saying goes? Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door or something like that. Anyway, the Japanese did it, but someone forgot to tell them that the phrase included provisos like "humane".

Yes, we have a mice problem. Had a mice problem. Martine tried to warn us after staying over one night, but we were in denial for quite some time. I think the conversation went something like:

Martine: Hey, you guys. Did you know you have mice? I saw a huge one climb up the wall over there.

Us: Pah, it must have been a cockroach. We get them every now and then. I've already set baits, don't worry about it.

Until they started getting stuck into the bananas. That was the point at which we decided we had to get rid of them.

I searched high and low (well, the high and low shelves in the pharmacy down the end of the street) for your standard, painless, set-the-cheese-and-wait-for-the-snap trap that ends the varmint's life instantly, but you just don't seem to be able to buy them in Japan. The alternatives were poison, or the incredibly inhumane glue-pad, a sticky surface that the poor little thing sticks to and can't move from. I bought both (we were getting desperate, ok?)

At first we tried the poison. Judging by the cartoon on the cover of a rodent licking his lips holding a knife and fork, these were supposed to be tasty little sacks of scrumptious nastiness that the little critters couldn't help but chow into, but made them feel dehydrated so that they went outside to quietly die (out of sight, out of mind!)

The mice must have played hacky-sack with the damn things, because in the morning we found them scattered around the kitchen floor but otherwise left untouched.

And so, we resorted to the gluey walk-on-this-and-you'll-never-leave approach. We lay the trap with a piece of banana (I figured we should make its last meal its favourite food) and left Saturday afternoon for an overnight trip to Nikko, and just got back this evening.

Unfortunately, it worked. Extremely well.

Lying glued to the cardboard adhesive mat, whimpering in its own shit, urine and vomit (and some other green mucous that may or may not have been its brain) was not a mouse, but a very sizeable rat. Up until now I still hadn't really believed that they had existed in the apartment because we had never seen one. Well, here it was. And the little fucker was panting and looking woefully up at me.

The bastard almost looked cute.

I had to shield our catch from Kim and bundle the whole package - trap, banana and rat complete with excreted accessories - into several layers of plastic bags, take it outside and stomp on it to put the poor bastard out of its misery. The neighbour was sitting in the gutter having a cigarette, and watched on quizically. I didn't bother trying to explain. I was too full of pity and kept seeing its face looking up at me whenever I closed my eyes.

We are so getting a cat when we get back to Australia.