Not long ago, my girlfriend and I moved into a new flat in Amsterdam. We weren’t there long before we began to see signs of mice - holes chewed in bread bags and tiny sausage-shaped droppings on surfaces that ought to be spotless. At first it was just signs but soon we began having mouse encounters of the third kind. In one day, there were two major incidents which made it obvious we had to act.
In the first encounter, labelled ‘The Mousewell Incident,’ my girlfriend had just put the lever down on the toaster, when suddenly one of the furry creatures jumped out of it. We both jumped nearly as high as the mouse and it is arguable which of us got the bigger fright. Later that day, the famous ‘Printer 18’ incident occurred when the same creature was seen sitting on top of our new printer. We duly bought a mousetrap.
Now, my girlfriend and I are too soppy a pair of souls to actually do anything to kill them, so we spent ten times as much money buying a humane trap that deprives them of their freedom rather than their lives. Once caught, we would them go somewhere nice, like a park. One reason for this soppiness in this instance was the fact that quite a few generations ago, at least one ancestor of that mouse would have lived in a windmill in old Amsterdam and could well have been the creature whose antics inspired the rhyme. And you can’t go around killing the offspring of an historical figure like that. Over the next few nights, we set the trap on known mouse thoroughfares loaded with the sort of stuff mice like to nibble.
A few days later, our soppiness was reduced somewhat by the discovery of little mouse poos inside the printer. This was the short, brown straw that broke the camel’s back. Humane traps are all very well, but this little bugger had to be taught a lesson for the rest of its reincarnations. I don’t care if he came from a famous family. I bet the people who lived in that old windmill would have not have stood for it if his predecessor had pooed in their printer. And given the breeding habits of mice, I doubt this is the only descendent of that famous mouse. This one is obviously the black sheep of that family. The one with no respect for Class-A laser products.
We considered getting a cat. We thought about buying the normal mouse-traps that are not completely humane, but are more humane than a cat. And we even attempted to design a trap that turned on a kettle which set a boat floating towards the ironing board which sent a mop sliding along and knocked a bowling ball falling down onto the mouse. But I’ve seen the cartoons, and the bowling ball always ends up on the creator not the cat, so we soon dropped those plans.
That night, things changed again. The nice trap caught a mouse. A baby. He was small, his eyes big and round, and he was very scared. How could we think of setting a nasty trap with little, ickle sweet things like that romping around. The mouse didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to eat our rolls, or that our work surfaces were not available for bodily functions. And finding himself in the huge interior of the hangar-like printer and looking at the bizarre workings, what creature wouldn’t have crapped itself.
It was winter when we caught the mouse, and so putting him outside, alone, was out of the question to our faint hearts. We placed him in a large box lined with straw and wood-shavings, and furnished with trays of water and food. He spent most of his time jumping up to the lid and perfecting the art of climbing along the ridge to look for a way out.
The next day we had caught a companion for him, a much older, larger mouse. He too tried to escape most of his waking hours, but wasn’t as good at jumping up to the top as the younger one. Soon, their escape attempts became more of a ritual as the constant supply of food and water made them calmer. They still tried to get out, but it became more of a routine for them. Just to show us they were wild mice, but thanks for the food and shelter, we’re going to sleep now.
We had just the two for a couple of weeks. The weather was still bad, and we fully intended to wait until spring before releasing them, but our hand was forced. We’d caught the baby and the grandparent, now it was time to catch the stupid member of the family.
The stupid one was caught in the wastepaper bin. It was early evening and the bin sitting right next to my girlfriend started rustling. I peered in the top and there was a small, brown mouse. It looked at me with an "I don’t know," expression and tried to shuffle further under the bag. I could tell this wasn’t the brightest spark in the gunpowder pot (or whatever the expression is). A draughtboard was all that was required to trap him.
It would have been very difficult to transfer stupid mouse from the bin into the box, so the time had come to let the rascals go. (Ransom didn’t look like an option.)
At two o’clock in the morning, two well-wrapped figures were seen leaving a canal-side building. One was carrying a large, plastic box, the other had a bin with a chequer-board on it. They moved stealthily to the end of the street to the area where large, square containers held the street’s rubbish. The chequer-board was removed and with a little assistance a tiny, light-brown figure emerged and scampered down the side of a Chinese antique shop. It took more of an effort to release the contents of the box. Even when it was tipped up, whatever was in it remained curled up in the sawdust. It took prodding for the mice to give up their warm beds for the cold February air. The two figures retrieved their containers and wondered back along the canal. They were filled with a sense of guilt, and hoped the mice would find it in their tiny hearts to understand.
That is not the end of the mice in the flat. There are still more; at least two by our reckoning. The ones that remain are smarter, fitter and more cautious than those we caught. They have also been able to learn from the mistakes of others. The trap has not worked since and the temporary Mouse Centre remains empty.
But if the mice have learnt, so have we. Our bread bin is now very securely fastened and you won’t believe how high the printer is off the floor.
Peter More has not been nominated for this year’s ‘Dutch Scourge of the Mouse’ Award.
© March 2001.