Death in the pantry

This one's not for the faint of heart. A few weeks ago we noticed the, er, "traces" of a mouse in our pantry. The cellier, or pantry, is a small room off the utility room on the ground floor of the house. The floor is not concrete, but a thick layer of sand. The room's temperature fluctuates with the weather, so it's not a good place for long-term wine storage. We keep canned goods, dry goods, onions, potatoes, pet food, and other easily stored items down there. Since the pantry door is closed, the cat cannot get in there to hunt

Of course I had to photograph the carnage. Fortunately, there was no blood.

The mouse had not gnawed into anything that I could see, but his/her "leavings" were obvious. It had burrowed into the sandy floor and was digging tunnels under the dog's kibble bin. It would only be a matter of time until it started nibbling on potatoes or ripping into plastic bags of rice and pasta.

I baited three traps with peanut butter and waited. A few days later, we found that one of the "snap" traps had worked. Poor thing. I've kept the traps down there in case there are other mice, but it's been more than a couple of weeks and there is no sign of another.