Question by MadeYouReadThis: I had to kill a mouse yesterday and I feel really bad about it and the way I did it.?
Our apartment complex decided to put lids on the dumpsters to keep the rodents out. Well they went to the next closest place that had a food source and started coming into the apartments. Somehow they were coming in behind the stove. The stove is bolted down so I can’t move it to clean underneath it. There are years worth of crumbs under there because the apartment hasn’t cleaned it either. My husband has set several of the snap traps and got about 4. They died instantly. Sometimes those traps will only get a leg and the poor thing will suffer. The sticky tape traps are even worse! So I bought some ultrasonic noise makers that are supposed to drive them away. I used peppermint oil from the health food store to drive them away. Yesterday, I walked into the kitchen and perched in my kitchen sink was a mouse. He was sitting on top of a baby food jar that I hadn’t rinsed out yet. He didn’t run and seemed disoriented from the noise makers. I thought I could turn the water on and rinse him down the drain. That didn’t work, he just scurried around the sink. I thought I could use a hanger to push him down the drain. He just kept scurrying back out. I tried to whack him with the hanger and that wasn’t going to do anything. So, I pushed him into the sink drain and I did the unthinkable. I turned on the garbage disposal. I can still hear his little bones getting all chopped up. I am pretty upset about it. Do you think it was a pretty quick and painless death? He would have died soon anyway in the next trap my husband set. And there is a chance he may have not died instantly in a snap trap. I think he died instantly, don’t you?
And I have 3 cats. They are completely worthless at getting rid of mice.
My house is not dirty, it’s actually very clean. I can’t move the stove or I would clean under there. I disinfected the garbage disposal and the entire kitchen like you would never believe. Mice carry diseases and I have a baby. I will not just live with a mouse because it’s wrong to kill a living thing. If my baby got sick, I would be devastated.
I think they bolt down the stove for 2 reasons. One is so it isn’t stolen by the tenants. The other is if a child were to climb on a stove and tip it onto themselves, they could feasibly be sued for not installing an anti-tip device.
Best answer:
Answer by Elana
Considering the size of the mouse and the size of the blades of the disposer, the mouse would have suffered for a small number of seconds. There are worse ways to go.
Indeed, the fear during your attempt to drown him was probably in some ways worse.
You are going to kill helpless, innocent things over the course of your life. How many bacteria do you kill by just walking across the floor? The trick is to learn from it and avoid doing it in the future.
I would scream bloody murder at the landlord and make him clean under the stove or unbolt it. Whether you like mice or not, it is a health risk and your landlord needs to fix it.
As for guilt … consider the way a mouse dies when being played with by a cat, or the hideous pain they go through with rat poison … there’s just no way to win here.
As you point out, the traps are only quick sometimes.
I’m not going to patronize you and say “Sorry for your loss”, but I will say “Its OK.”
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