Saga of the New York Mouse

Living in the darkest corners in the tiniest spaces of the city, dwell the pests that cannot be beat.

Mine is a she-demon of a tiny mouse who I've taken to calling Pierre.

Pierre is not like a cute Ratatouille critter that makes me breakfast and can teach me how to cook. Pierre is a full grown nuisance that cannot be stopped.

I first learned that Pierre was a girl and not a boy when - to my dismay - I found four little baby mice rustling around in an empty trash bag early one morning. Fortunately I got them in a clean sweep: tied the bag shut, ran to the trash can at the end of the block to let them go, and managed to maintain a high pitched, low decibel extended squeal while holding the little squirmy things as far away from me as possible as I ran.

After all that, the heartless creature couldn't be bothered to go look for her babies, but stayed to plague me instead. 

I first took the path of pacifist. Against my exterminator's better judgment, I bought the traps that just involve a door closing in on the mouse, no death. I can only image she scoffed at them as she maneuvered around it to get at my trash.

Next came the glue traps. And the poison pellets. The weird sprays. The foam to plug her little escape routes.

Pierre was nonplussed, and by all evidence, alive and well.

Finally, as a last resort, I did what my friends and the exterminator had advised me all along. I got the snap traps and bated them (apparently peanut butter and chocolate work much better than cheese).

To no avail. Now, four months later, Pierre continues to thrive off of my largess.

Sometimes she even comes out of her nebulous lair to sit in the middle of my dining room floor, for funzies, you know to say hi.

And she STARES at me. As if to say, hey, you tried your best, you let my babies go into the world, but I remain.

Inadvertently, I have contributed to the evolution of a new species, the supermousus New Yorkus: uncatchable fiends that fly over glue traps and cannot be tricked or willed or muscled into submission. At this point, I've just had to recognize a worthy adversary and accept with reluctance our symbiotic situation.

It could be worse. At least Pierre is not a cockroach!