It is weird to be afraid of a little mouse? [Archive]

iris lily

9-17-11, 12:01pm

I'm not AFRAID of them, but:

1) they can be startling as they scurry across the floor
2) they make messes, smelly messes, and I can be worried that they are impossible to eradicate

This isn't fear, but I have a reasonable aversion to them.

I also feel sorry for them when our cats catch them. Here is a poem that illustrates how hard it is to be a mouse:

Love to eat them mousies
Mousies what I love to eat
Bite they little heads off...
Nibble on they tiny feet. ...

CathyA

9-17-11, 12:53pm

Hi Life is Simple,
No, its not weird. I had one run across my seat once in my old pick-up truck while I was driving. Needless to say, I turned around and went home. haha

I think its the surprise factor that gets us. Plus......we're not supposed to be sharing our living spaces with wild animals that surprise us! I feel bad for them. But we do set traps, because who wants mouse poop on their kitchen counters, or nests in their underware drawer?
You're not weird. Now if you screamed if someone gave you an orange.........that might be a little unusual. :)

goldensmom

9-17-11, 1:12pm

No more so than being afraid of a little spider (me). I agree with CathyA regarding the orange.

Simplemind

9-17-11, 1:42pm

We recently had a sighting at work. It totally freaked one of the people out who then left and didn't come back for a week.

Life_is_Simple

9-17-11, 1:59pm

Thanks, guys! Your posts make me feel better :thankyou:

Related to the screaming when given an orange... Ok, I don't do that. But I'm worried that the mouse might get me by surprise, and I scream, and my neighbor comes running down :laff:

loosechickens

9-17-11, 3:00pm

hehehehe.....it may depend on how close the encounter is....I'm normally quite sanguine about such things, but once, long ago, on the first cold day, I reached into the closet and pulled out a pouffy down jacket that had been hanging there since the previous winter, and as I slipped it on, I felt something alive running up my arm......a little mouse had found it's way in through a small hole in the lining, and was between the lining and the pouffy down part, living happily until I disturbed it.

My then husband described the scene as "hysterical woman, screaming, slapping at her arm, trying frantically to both get the jacket off, and hit the arm of the jacket, HARD"........unfortunately for the little mousie, my aim was good, my panic real, and the force of my blows squashed the poor thing, and that was the end of the jacket. I never could put it on again, even after my then husband removing the mouse, and having the jacket cleaned. I finally just got rid of it.

But........to this DAY, I never put on a jacket unless I inspect it, make sure there are no "funny lumps" in it, and I remember that day vividly.

So.......I think the "weirdness" of the reaction depends completely on the individual circumstances, hahahahaha.......

Mrs-M

9-17-11, 3:44pm

No at all. All things unusual/not typical to us (related to living things and our surroundings) have the potential to startle and spook. Given the choice, I'll take my home and life without Mr. Mouse!

Marianne

9-17-11, 4:00pm

X2.
28 years in the city, no mice.
EVERY year in the country, one or two mice in the house. Agh. We have managed to catch two of them and release them outside (recycled mouse). The cats have caught the rest of them. One of them feels the need to play show and tell by bringing dead or possum-playing mouse up on my bed. O joy.
I'm not afraid of them, it's the startle effect.

Tenngal

9-17-11, 4:03pm

we had one that I had noticed racing along the wall at night. It always went along the wall and behind the entertainment center. So, that's where I put my glue trap. It is amazing how much noise a tiny creature can make when captured. From all the noise, I was expecting something much larger when we moved the furniture. It was really small, and loud. Guess I am not afraid of them, but don't want too many in the house with me.

Stella

9-17-11, 4:19pm

I am infamous for my fear of mice, x2 if they are dead. I once had a cat leave me a dead mouse in the kitchen when Zach wasn't home. I packed all the kids in the car and went to the bakery to buy 1/2 a dozen eclairs to bribe my next-door neighbor with so he'd get rid of the mouse.

My kids once were pretending to have magical pet mice and they came to me and said, "mom, we're playing with our pretend mice, but they're not real. So when you hear us say, 'oh look, there's a mouse!' please, please don't scream and shut yourself in the bathroom." :)

Sad Eyed Lady

9-17-11, 5:05pm

Not weird to me. Just reading loosechickens' post gave me that old panic-y feeling. I have a true phobia and can have nightmares if I just see them on TV or in a pet store. I am a animal lover and cannot understand my complete and total aversion to them. There was a psychiatrist in my a writers group I used to be a part of several years ago, and I discussed this with him. He told me it was a true phobia. As most phobias are, it is unreasonable but almost debilitating when even the possibility of an encounter comes up.

goldensmom

9-17-11, 7:19pm

We have a ton of field mice about (not in the house however) due to grain, hay fields, barns, etc.. One of my dogs was a mouser when she was a pup. She'd find field mice and bring them to me. She was so pleased with herself but I was not so pleased with her.

SiouzQ.

9-17-11, 8:16pm

A couple of years ago, I remember I came home from work and flopped down on the couch before tackling supper and I got a whiff of an of odd, icky smell but didn't think much of it. Dinner was made, dishes cleaned and again I flopped on the couch to relax for the evening...again the bad smell, even stronger. So I go to investigate ~ right under the futon couch where my very head lay was a mouse...a very dead and well, liquid-ish mouse, probably deposited by my cat days before. I could NOT bring myself to clean it up and had to get my 6'6" neighbor to do the nasty deed...however, it was the only mouse that I have ever had here in 15 years.

Now, those silverfish things, large hairy spiders and ****roaches? I CANNOT stand them, but since I live alone the fear of letting them run loose because I am too scared to squash them motivates me to...squash them. Other types of bugs I don't mind and have a special jar and piece of cardboard in which to trap the poor little buggers in and take them outside where they belong. I just caught two wasps this way in the last few days that somehow had made their way into the bathroom.

Rosemary

9-17-11, 10:02pm

Oh my goodness... roaches. I lived in the southeast when I was in grad school and there were these huge flying roaches (about 4" long) there that would get into my apartment. One time there was one in my kitchen sink! I dreaded having to get up in the middle of the night! When I needed to, I would first switch on the lamp next to my bed, wait a few seconds... turn on the overhead bedroom light to shed light into the hall.. wait a few seconds before moving to the next light --- so that the roaches would go hide somewhere. They were not numerous, but they were huge! Walking around campus after dark was really disgusting.

One of the things I really, really like about living in the frozen, far north is that the bugs are a lot smaller!

As for mice - I don't care for the surprise factor, plus they can carry horrible diseases.

Kathy WI

9-17-11, 10:08pm

I don't mind mice and have caught a bunch in live traps, though not recently. I kept two as pets for a couple years. The wild ones were nicer and not nearly as stinky as pet store mice I've had. What I really can't stand are centipedes. Those things are horrifying. Once we had a bat in our house, and it makes me shiver just thinking about it.

iris lily

9-17-11, 11:46pm

oh h*ll yes, flying roaches, ugh. When I lived in the SouthWest I remember sitting on the grass, making out with a boyfriend and a flying roach got tangled in my hair. Those things are pretty crazy. Back then, I didn't' have a big roach phobia but living in that fairly warm climate made me get to hate them.

hooray for the midwest where it freezes during the winter and kills all kinds of varmints.

reader99

9-18-11, 8:35am

Not weird. They are unexpected and they scuttle alarmingly, and as a species we have millenia of history of battling them for our stored foodstuffs, needed to keep us alive over long winters.

Rogar

9-18-11, 12:30pm

On the heebie jeebie scared scale mice don't affect me too much. I don't like them, but unless there is a major infestastion they are fairly easy to get rid of.

Remember Orwell's 1984 where the main characters primary fear was rats? That's almost at the top of my heebie jeebie list. Much higher than spiderrs or snakes.

KayLR

9-18-11, 6:58pm

Confession time: I am terrified of mice and rats. They're nearly equal in my mind. I think I was ruined at an early age seeing the movie, "Willard." I can't even look at them in a cage at a pet store. They have reduced me to tears.

Nothing else affects me this way. Not spiders, snakes, nothing...

Stella

9-20-11, 4:48pm

+1 to Rosemary and Iris on being happy to live where the cold kills so many pests!

The bat thing reminded me of a horrible story that happened to my boss. She came home after a lengthy vacation and was going to run her garbage disposal, but saw something in there she thought was a rag and stuck her hand in to get it. It wasn't a rag, it was a bat! Ugh!

pony mom

9-20-11, 11:05pm

I think mice are adorable, with their cute faces and huge ears. I collect mouse statues. But, I don't want to see them scurrying around where they shouldn't be. Couldn't kill one myself, but I know a few barncats who never have that problem.

daisy

9-21-11, 4:06pm

Mice don't bother me, but like a couple other people mentioned, those big flying roaches make me scream and run for the hills! I hate, hate, hate them and if I have to actually do the squishing, I hit them hard enough to kill a rhinoceros. <shudder>

bekkilyn

9-21-11, 4:47pm

I don't want mice in my house due to the destruction they can cause, but I also find them to be very cute, so I can't imagine being scared of them.

Now spiders that aren't in webs creep me out big time. I don't mind the web spiders because they sit safely in their webs and capture other types of creatures that creep me out, but the types of spiders that scuttle around and sneak up on me are quite frightening!

Same with the roach/beetle type bugs. Had a huge one that fell off the ceiling right onto my head a couple months ago while I was at the computer. *shudders*

jennipurrr

9-21-11, 5:35pm

I can deal with mice. I have never had them live in my house but when we lived in the country my outside kitty had a field mice hey day...I felt bad for the little guys.

I cannot handle roaches. Its something irrational. We have giant wood roaches that live in the oak trees in this area. They are disgustingly huge but they aren't the kind of roaches that spread disease or even really want to live in the house and eat food. They prefer to eat rotting trees or whatever. Well, this year has been awful! After the tornado hit in April they have been everywhere. There was a report on the news about how their habitat has been disturbed. Ugh, I just freak out and can't handle it and then DH is worse! He does not have the best motor skills is a really bad shot in killing them so then they scurry under a baseboard and I spend the night worrying that they are going to come out and get on my face while I sleep. So, now I am resident roach smasher, ughhhhh. I was hoping that they would settle down as things got back to normal but I am still finding them every now and again and am debating having the house sprayed.

treehugger

9-21-11, 6:03pm

Creep-crawlies

We have cats, and have never, to my knowledge had a mouse in the house. But we think we now have rats under the house and in the walls. Ugh, we can hear chewing. Roof rats are a very common problem in our area and apparently they are very smart and hard to trap.

We have a lot of squirrels in our yard (they're just rats with cuter outfits!) and my female greyhound has caught one. That surprised us all, dog, human, and squirrel. Too bad there's no room to let her loose under the house. ;)

My husband rescues mice, bees, and spiders that fall in the pool. He's never rescued a rat, but I think has only found a dead one in the pool.

I'm fine with spiders in general, and just ignore them, even in the house. But we are prone to black widows (only seen them in the garage and side yard though) and I really don't like them.

I've never lived any where there are large roaches, but I have definitely seen them, in Hawaii and Las Vegas. In Hawaii, I will not go to the bathroom without turning on the light. They don't really scare me, but that doesn't mean I want to step on one. Ick.

My mom has lived in places where scorpions are common, and talked about the need to shake out ones shoes every morning before putting them on. No thanks!

Ishbel, thanks for sharing that mouse-in-the-jacket-lining story.

Kara

Life_is_Simple

9-23-11, 12:44pm

We recently had a sighting at work. It totally freaked one of the people out who then left and didn't come back for a week.

I can relate to this person ;)

Life_is_Simple

9-23-11, 12:55pm

KayLR

9-23-11, 7:44pm

I can relate to this person ;)

+1

frugalone

9-24-11, 5:53pm

I have had pet rats for years, but when there is a mouse in the house, I kind of freak out. If one were to ask me what animals I'm afraid of, I'd say spiders and snakes, though!

Perfectly normal.

P.S. I hate centipedes too. They scare the cr*p out of me. I know I can crush them but who wants to?

RosieTR

9-25-11, 1:50am

Update

The maintenance man had originally set 2 traps which were supposedly pre-scented. That didn't work. I later saw the mouse again several days ago. So I got my neighbor, and he put peanut butter on them for me, and we set some additional traps.

Now 3 mouse have been caught. The maintenance man yesterday looked around to where they might have been coming in. ANd could tell that one of the places was under the sink. So he sealed up around the pipes. 1 of the mice was caught since then, but it could have already been lurking.

Anyway, sometimes I seem calm, then when another is spotted or caught, I freak out.

The maintenance men seem remarkably unafraid of mice, as does my neighbor. I don't understand it :~)

I am going to spend the night at a friend's house, just so I get some sleep.

If I were your neighbor, I would help! I once saw a show on mice where they discovered the mice learned that certain foods in the trap would lead to death (by watching their friends/relatives die). So change up the bait every few days: bacon fat, cheese, other nut butters, plain butter, maybe even yogurt or some sort of slightly gooey candy will work.

I don't like mice in the house because of disease/poo factors but with 2 dogs and a cat the mice don't get too far. Of course, sometimes the cat brings them in alive as though they are his pet. He then spends the next few days catching and recatching unless I or the dogs manage to catch and kill it. What I hate are ants, mostly because the ones in warmer climates all seem to be tiny and bite, and I get a pretty good inflammation site every time for a week. Give me mosquitoes over ants any time. Even the time I stepped on a scorpion barefoot wasn't as bad: it hurt worse at first but went away after 48 hrs. I had a decent tolerance for creepy crawlies before but living in AZ has just made me blase about almost everything. There are black widows all over the yard and we've seen snakes and tarantulas on hikes, never mind the dozens of scorpions around as well as a good variety of other insects. My irrational fear? Food poisoning/contagion. I will not eat sushi, raw oysters, rare meat, etc. No thanks.

pony mom

9-25-11, 10:16pm

Silverfish!!! OOOOH, they're so wiggly and icky. Opened up a library book once and there was one sitting there. Slammed it shut and returned it without opening it again.

Strangely, ticks don't bother me. I'm always pulling them off the barn cats, then squishing them with my boot until they pop.

And one bug doesn't bother me. But lots of them do. Swarms of ants all moving in an area, or lifting a rock and finding those grey waterbug things scurrying away. EW!

Life_is_Simple

12-27-11, 3:17pm

So today, a maintenance man took another mouse out. That is #13.

I walked to the apartment office, and all the maintenance men were there, at the end of their lunch break. The one said "Oh, the local pest control guy who we normally use only does squirrels, not mice. No one local does mice."

So I went back and called up a local company that i had previously found on the internet, which had a lot of good reviews. The receptionist said they could be out within 2 days, and the price sounded reasonable. She said, "If your landlord isn't fixing the problem, you can contact the housing authority or the health department, and they will do an inspection, and give the landlord 14 days to fix the problem."

I said, "Really?!?" :thankyou:

So I printed out the contact information, and brought it to the apartment office receptionist (the maintenance men were out by that time). I may have mentioned "13 mice since september" and "housing authority."

The head maintenance man (not the guy I talked to earlier in the day) called and said "The pest control guy you found is coming tomorrow at 2pm."

So. That's good!:+1:

Charity

12-27-11, 3:49pm

Good for you for getting some action finally. Thirteen is a serious problem.

I'm not afraid of them exactly, but I'll never forget how I learned my ex-husband was. We were watching tv and saw a mouse scurry along the wall. He told me to take the dog and lock myself in our bedroom upstairs. I waited for a long time and heard a lot of commotion and finally went to see what was happening. My husband had blocked the stairs off with cardboard and he was standing in a cardboard box in the living room with a baseball bat in his hand waiting for it to run by. When I got done laughing I chased the little thing out the front door.

Life_is_Simple

12-27-11, 3:56pm

Good for you for getting some action finally. Thirteen is a serious problem.

Half were caught while I was out of town for a while. I called the apartment people, and told them to check on the traps while I was gone. When they didn't call back, I figured there was no issue. However, they threw out the ones caught when i called, and set a few more traps, so there were some to deal with when I got back.

So the lack of follow-up during that time contributed to the lingering issue.

I'm not afraid of them exactly, but I'll never forget how I learned my ex-husband was. We were watching tv and saw a mouse scurry along the wall. He told me to take the dog and lock myself in our bedroom upstairs. I waited for a long time and heard a lot of commotion and finally went to see what was happening. My husband had blocked the stairs off with cardboard and he was standing in a cardboard box in the living room with a baseball bat in his hand waiting for it to run by. When I got done laughing I chased the little thing out the front door.
:D I'm quite surprised that more men aren't afraid of them. Or maybe they are, but a person doesn't realize it until they are in the situation you had with your ex ;)

Kestrel

12-27-11, 11:04pm

Not "afraid" of mice, but I'm not excited about having them in the house. BUGS, on the other hand (of any size or shape), take their lives in their hands (so to speak) when they come near me. If they're in the house and are big I make DH kill them. I have what I call a BFZ -- "bug-free zone" -- that extends ten feet from me in every dicrection. If bugs stay outside of that I respect their place in the Grand Scheme of Things and they can live and do their own thing. I do like honeybees, tho. We had two hives at one time (hippie years) and I came to like them quite a bit. Never was stung.

I like snakes and reptiles, too, tho I wouldn't want any loose in the house, except MAYBE for them to eat bugs. I prefer to encounter them out in the woods.

Life_is_Simple

12-29-11, 11:59am

Life_is_Simple

12-29-11, 12:14pm

So the Professional Pest Guy (PPG) came yesterday, and filled up all the holes around pipes, etc. The one maintenance man looked on, and I could tell he is the type of guy who really likes to be part of things, without doing actual work. ;) The maintenance man did comment that PPG had tools and chemicals that the maintenance people don't have, so he looked on with interest.

The PPG company's M.O. is to seal all the holes, set a few traps to catch any remaining that are trapped inside, then come back in a few days and assess.

The PPG did one thing that I thought was GENIUS. He pulled out the stove, and looked behind it, then put it back. THEN ... he pulled the stove pan drawer out, put some traps down, and then put the drawer back in so it's over the top of the traps. This catches anything remaining, but I will never know about it until he comes back! I won't have to see anything! I can just go about my business in peace!! :+1:

Interestingly, a couple hours before the PPG guy showed up, I happened to see my one neighbor and asked him if he had any problems of this type. He said YES! But he was catching them himself. He was interested in what the PPG guy was going to do for me.

I am going to have to talk to that neighbor again, and tell him to call the maintenance people about the problem, so that there is additional evidence and that they really work on getting rid of the issue.!thumbsup!

Wish us luck ;)