We have mice. Somehow, with one young male cat, an interested female cat, a prior alley cat, one hunting dog and another dog, a family of mice has moved in.

I can only think they are very suicidal mice.

The first evidence of mice was a few weeks ago, when one scurried towards me in the kitchen, much to my squealing dismay. ( I detest mice.) I hoped it was a mouse that had mistakenly gotten in somehow, and would be leaving. It never occurred to me that a mouse would want to make a home here, surrounded by this many predators.

Since then it has been my blessing to come across:

1. a half digested mouse on my bedroom floor. (Thankfully not offered to me in bed by my devoted cats, they have gifted me with dead things in bed before, bless them.)

2. a flattened mouse under my kitchen carpet. (Not sure how it got flattened, not sure I want to know.)

3. a mouse corpse in my living room, courtesy of my faithful hunting dog.

I have spent the past few hours pouring peppermint oil onto medium grade steel wool and stuffing it into any opening I can find. I have also washed my kitchen down with Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap and sprinkled the carpets with peppermint oil. Everything is very clean, and very crisp smelling. We have a lovely  candy cane scent in the house.

Peppermint is supposed to drive them out, it’s supposed to offend their olfactory senses. Hopefully this is true. I really can’t stand to have little mice moving around my house. For some reason they eek me out in a very deeply instinctual way. I can tell myself I am bigger and tougher than them until the cows come home, but I will still shriek like a baby when I find one, even if it’s dead.