I just killed my first mouse.Â? I’m having serious karmic issues with this.
You see… my cats were refusing to listen to my shrieks of “KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!!!!!!!!” and I had to take matters into my own hands.Â? (It distresses me muchly when they play with their food.)Â? I got a yogurt container, trapped the varmint under it, put the top on, took it outside, and stomped on it.Â? When I looked inside, the creature was breathing heavily.Â? I think it probably hemmorhaged to death.
I am feeling extreme guilt over the taking of another creature’s life, even if said creature would have spread bubonic plague or Hanta virus throughout my house.Â? I think this is why I couldn’t hunt and why I should really be a vegetarian…
/me cracks up.
For the future, sticky traps work well…. but only if you add your own bait. (we found pizza crust or bacon works well).
why didn’t you just let it go outside?
(luckily for me, Neo’s impulse is to kill everything. Even me…)
Grrr – that’s HORRIBLE.
Sticky traps are inhumane. It is much more humane to just kill the mouse in one fell swoop.
I have a mouse story too. There are sticky traps in the departmental office at school, and during my planning period, I went into the office and my coworker Barbara told me that there was a mouse in the corner. I heard it squeaking and went to look. The poor thing (which I acknowledge does not belong in the building) had probably been squirming like that for fifteen minutes already. After telling Barbara that I was going to let it go (which she was upset about until I explained that I was going to let it go OUTSIDE) I went outside with the trap and a plastic fork, hoping that I’d be able to pry this mouse off the trap and let it go outside. No such luck. The thing was alive and miserable on this horrible trap, but I couldn’t get it off. So I went inside, really probably more distraught than is reasonable on account of a mouse, and I went back into the office. Barbara was horrified that I’d brought it back. I explained that the trap was inhumane, and that I was going to just drop a book on it to kill it so that it wouldn’t suffer anymore. She looked at me like I was crazy and left the room while I searched for a book to kill the mouse with. Thankfully, it had died of suffocation before I could find one suitable for euthanizing the mouse.
I told this story to the nicest lady in my department, and she doubled over in laughter at me. The man in our department made his exit that afternoon by handing me a copy of Of Mice and Men for next time I have to make such a hard decision. This, of course, is the perfect ironic choice (though it would probably not kill a mouse because it’s such a short book).
I completely agree with you- its SO imhumane to let them suffer and die of starvation or while they rip their skin off in trying to escape. Dropping a book on the poor mouse is a much much better idea.