A few weeks ago I noticed an unwelcome visitor sneaking into my apartment late at night, just before I go to bed. I noticed that he (or she, or they!) were leaving little reminders of their visits on my bench tops, sofa and other areas where I would rather not find mouse shit.
I had been putting off catching my late night prowler due to bad memories from the last time I got involved in the mouse catching business. In Vietnam, as I see it, there are four ways to catch and deal with a mouse.
1. Poison: Available at the market if you know how to ask for it, it will kill anything that tries to eat it from cockroaches to mice, dogs and cats and probably small children. I really try to avoid the possibility of killing someone’s loved one or pet therefore I passed on the rat poison option. Rat poison also results in the mouse eating the poison, then wandering off to an unknown corner of your house to die and rot, while you try and figure out where the smell is coming from. I think with the other options available poison is an outdated way to catch a mouse.
2. Conventional Spring Mouse Trap: This mouse trap solves the problem of accidental poisoning and also avoids the chances of the mouse dying without you knowing where it is. There is still a risk of kids or pets getting stuck in the trap but it isn’t likely to be fatal, painful – hell yeah! But not fatal.
3. Sticky Sand Paper: I only heard about this method after having arrived in Vietnam and after having a large rat problem in my HCMC shared house. Basically you apply a very sticky glue to a sheet of sand paper, put some bait on it and wait for your little friend to come along. The problems with this method, kids and pets once again can become victims but there is a bigger problem. Once the mouse has taken the bait, he or she becomes stuck to a large piece of paper and then proceeds to roll around (for hours!), the mouse doesn’t die leaving you to “off” him (I used a bucket of water, and till this day I still squirm at the thought).
4. The Humane Mouse Trap: Also known as the girlie mouse trap because it doesn’t actually harm the mouse and you have the option of letting him go in some far off land. The trap is re-usable and not likely to cause any serious injury to kids or pets.
This time around I decided to go with the fourth option, actually my wife bought the trap so I had no say, I had to set it of course. I decided to go with a small piece of raw fish covered in peanut butter as bait as recommended by friends who I assume have experience in the area of catching mice. Apparently mice prefer raw foods to cooked foods and the peanut butter helps the mice stick to the food putting more pressure on the bait and increasing the likelihood of setting off the trap.
So how long did it take to get results? Exactly five minutes. I set he trap before I went to bed and put it in a place where I had previously seen mouse droppings, turned off the lights and went to bed. SNAP! I got up to check that the mouse hadn’t bumped into the outside of the trap to set it off (you never know how smart mice can be). I was delighted to find, not one but two mice frantically trying to escape from the trap, fantastic result. I put the trap outside my front door, the building supervisor disposed of him in the morning (I didn’t ask questions) and my trap was returned mouse free.
I will set the trap again tonight and every night until the little reminders that mice have been visiting are no longer part of my daily house keeping chores. For those of you looking to buy a Humane Mouse Trap they cost about 25,000 VND and are available from most markets.
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