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There's a mouse in my pipes

  
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
10:14 / 20.07.06
I just opened my shower curtain to see a mouse in the bathtub. My cat's been on a real hunting tear lately, and she likes to perform her "finishing moves" in the bathtub (not sure why), so I surmised that she'd brought the mouse in, gotten distracted, and left. Weird, but whatever.

So I got a bucket to hold the mouse and a magazine to shoo it in with, and when I went to put the bucket in the bathtub, the mouse ran... down the drain.

Which I suppose is how it escaped the cat when it got dropped off.

What the hell do I do now?

I can run some water and drown the poor little bastard, but (a) cute! and (b) I'll probably end up with a dead rotting rodent in the pipes.

I can try to bait it out with some cheese, but I need to go to work, and I don't know if it will come out.

I need to shower and go to work! And there's a mouse in my pipes! Any ideas, Barbelith?
 
 
JOY NO WRY
10:25 / 20.07.06
Get one of those little grilles over yr drainpipe so solids don't go down it?
 
 
Olulabelle
10:28 / 20.07.06
Forgoe the shower and have a brisk wash, all the while watching your baited bath (peanut butter is the best bait for mice I think). Put the bait up the non-plug end and as soon as the mouse comes out, put the plug in, quick!

Either that or drown it.

Please don't drown it.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
10:29 / 20.07.06
Yes, that is a good idea for the future. I had the little cross thingy in the drain, but the mouse has impressed me with its Ralph Dinbyesque squeeze-through-small-spaces skills.

And right now I'm more worried about getting the solid to come back up.
 
 
Sax
10:39 / 20.07.06
Stick the end of the vacuum cleaner hose in the plughole and switch on.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
10:41 / 20.07.06
Er, that @ yr, obviously. I don't want to drown it, but I need to leave the house regardless.

I'll have no way of knowing when I get home if it's come out of the drain and been eaten by the cat, if the cat or the mouse or some third party has eaten the cheese (I don't have any peanut butter) or even if the mouse is still under the bathtub or if it has travelled the depths of the sewer lines to emerge in Chicago, where it is now on a gambling and boozing binge the likes of which mousedom has never seen.

And my parents are coming for a visit tomorrow. Sigh.
 
 
Olulabelle
10:45 / 20.07.06
Hsve you got any chocolate then? They don't really much like cheese.

Get a towel and hang it over the bathtub side, so there is a mouse 'ladder'. Put chocolate in the bath and also out of the bath. Shut the bathroom door and put the cat somewhere else. Put another towel along the bottom of the outside of the bathroom door. Hopefully, by the time you get home you will have a mouse out of the pipes and the bath but still in the bathroom, and the cat will not have eaten it because it can't get through doors.
 
 
Olulabelle
10:52 / 20.07.06
Oh and bring home a humane mouse trap.

Or:

Run the water really hard and hope it acts like a big water slide instead of a big drowny wave. Then if we all visualise the mouse enjoying his watery ride through the pipes of Chicago and hope that he wooshes out somewhere really pleasant and mousey, perhaps he will.

Or:

Pour some drain unblocker down the drain and that will kill the little fucker.*



*Don't you DARE do this.
 
 
William Sack
11:01 / 20.07.06
Matt, if you follow Sax' advice, don't do it in the nude and make sure the floor is not slippery. Every hospital A & E department has stories about the explanations people give when they turn up with a bottle of hairspray stuck in their rectum or their knob in a domestic appliance, and 'trying to hoover a mouse out of the bath plughole' really does seem to fit that bill.
 
 
Sax
11:32 / 20.07.06
Olulabelle, you really can't stop yourself suggesting ways to off the little fucker and then immediately feeling bad about it, can you?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:47 / 20.07.06
Cover yourself in chocolate spread and then get in the bath, lie back, relax, and have a little doze. When you are awoken by the sensation of the little critter nibbling at your extremities, spring into action!
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:54 / 20.07.06
Buy some humane mouse traps and fill them with poisoned bait, that way, you don't have to worry about what to do with the live mouse when it gets caught in the humane trap.
 
 
grant
11:58 / 20.07.06
The pipes under your drain are shaped like this.

The mouse wouldn't drown, necessarily (although it would get wet). It may even live there. Rats live in sewers, you know. That's probably where that pipe ultimately leads (unless you have a septic/drain field system).
 
 
Supaglue
11:59 / 20.07.06
Unless your mouse looks like this. Then. Be. Very. Afraid.
 
 
Cailín
13:25 / 20.07.06
Reasons why you shouldn't try to wash the mouse down the drain:
#1: If there are any unseen clogs/calcification, the mouse will probably get stuck, thus buggering your pipes. The mouse dies, and you have an unholy mess.
#2: If you don't live in a house with a close sewer connection (i.e. if you are in an apartment), the mouse will likely drown on the way. The mouse dies, and your karma is screwed.
#3: Your shower drain and toilet pipe connect, so the mouse will be travelling in raw sewage. The mouse is mortified, and you become a bully without meaning it.

Seriously, just let the little bugger climb out on his own. Getting a plumber over to snake the pipe to get the body out is really expensive.
 
 
Ticker
13:51 / 20.07.06
Buy some humane mouse traps and fill them with poisoned bait, that way, you don't have to worry about what to do with the live mouse when it gets caught in the humane trap.

Tidy, Gypsy, very tidy.
 
 
Quantum
13:58 / 20.07.06
Nuh-uh, then you don't get the fun of releasing the mouse into the local school, bash street style. I've done it, it's ace.
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
17:34 / 20.07.06
Well, I just gave up and went to work in the end. Considered a "mouse ladder" (hadn't read that reply yet, but thanks, Gypsy) but abandonded that idea ... too many ways for a mouse to escape the bathroom, and as much as I don't want to hurt the l'il fella, I don't want to invite him into my walls and to nibble on the electrics either.

So he'll either come out, run around the tub and eventually get eaten by the cat, or not. If not, I can only assume he'll eventually run further into the pipes and escape, or die in there. I have a 20' snake, worse come to worst. I imagine drain cleaner might take care of things if it gets bad.

Crossing my fingers...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:12 / 20.07.06
I have a 20' snake, worse come to worst.

No need to boast, Matt.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
18:24 / 20.07.06
I have a really great coat.
 
 
Olulabelle
18:27 / 20.07.06
Can the snake go down the pipe? Like Alien in the air ducts?
 
 
astrojax69
22:48 / 20.07.06
get a new cat?

or a snake. get a snake.
 
 
William Sack
08:24 / 21.07.06
Yes, get rid of the cat, or at least give it a formal warning.
 
 
William Sack
08:25 / 21.07.06
Or get one of those stomach-churning giant centipedes.
 
 
Quantum
08:36 / 21.07.06
get a snake.

Whut? A 20' snake isn't enough? Another snake? Surely that's overkill...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
08:58 / 21.07.06
SNAKES ON A DRAIN!!!
 
 
StarWhisper
17:57 / 30.12.06

I've been wondering what happened about this mouse. What happened?
 
 
Triplets
18:46 / 30.12.06
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
19:53 / 30.12.06
As much as I'd love to have a fascinating coda to the story, I'm afraid you'll have to be satisfied with "and the mouse was never heard from again." Either it came back out and one of the cats "sorted it," or it made its way through the pipes and is now riding an alligator and smoking blue mold in the sewers of Sherbrooke. It obviously didn't get stuck and die, because then it woulda stunk to high heaven, and that didn't ever happen.
 
 
astrojax69
00:41 / 02.01.07
no matt, it's still there...

waiting...

just waiting...


get a snake.
 
 
matthew.
11:43 / 03.01.07
It's biding its time. In order to get rid of it, you should get some Atomcats, to have a Secret Crisis Crossover with the mouse. Just look out for Galactapuss.
 
 
*
03:10 / 04.01.07
Squirrel in my chimney this morning. Figures.
 
  
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