Throughout the years, our hunting camp has been damaged by windstorms, hailstorms, vandalism, theft, porcupines, and other perils. Some of the most frustrating damages, however, have been caused by Mr. Mouse. Being in the middle of the woods and having the shack unoccupied for the majority of the year gives the advantage to these destructive little creatures that seem to take up occupancy as soon as we lock the door.
We deal with “deer mice,” or, in scientific terms, Peromyscus. They have big eyes and little ears that look like deer ears, and they are very agile compared to the common house mouse. They are extremely industrious. These mice have light brown fur and a white underbelly and, to be honest, I find them to be somewhat cute.
Mr. Mouse started to appear in our hunting shack shortly after it was built. I recall being up there one weekend when my mother pulled open the silverware drawer, only to find Mrs. Mouse and her litter occupying the drawer in a nest built out of paper towels. After the screaming stopped, my father grabbed the drawer and threw the contents out in the leaves. The silverware was triple-washed by my mother, and then washed again. After all, these little guys are noted for being carriers of multiple diseases. A year or two later, she was again surprised to find a mouse nest, this time in our linen drawer. More screaming, more throwing of contents into the woods. My mother was a farm girl, familiar with all sorts of critters, but she didn’t think that mice were “cute.”
When I was a young man up at Blue Heaven, I always slept in the center upper bunk directly below an old moldy mounted deer head. One evening, as I crawled into my sleeping bag, I thought I had a vision that the old deer head was actually moving. Closer examination revealed that Mrs. Mouse and her large family had built a nest in the forehead of that old mount, which was teeming with activity. No screaming, but my father once again pitched valuable contents of the hunting shack out into the woods. The sad part is that the eight-point mount was the old buck head where we stuck our dollars for the hunter who shot the first buck. We now use a simple icepick to attach the dollar bills to the wall.
For years we tolerated the mice. After all, we had invaded their territory, and we had to cohabitate with them or burn the shack down. I even recall one night when the little guys were racing around on the open rafters in the ceiling. We had great sport trying to nail one of them with an icepick, but they were much too fast and agile for us. Our quest to control them with various traps and poisons also proved unsuccessful.
One fall weekend just before deer season 1998, Dennis Clagett went out to crank up the light plant because it was getting dark, and mice came running out of the light plant as it began to start. The light plant was cooled by a fan and radiator attached to the engine, and mice had built a nest inside the fan. Dennis came into the shack to announce his personal war on our mice. In the weeks and months that followed, he spent considerable time caulking cracks, plugging holes with steel wool, nailing boards over openings, setting traps, and putting out poison. This was war and he was going to win.
Dennis successfully controlled the mice around the camp for quite a number of years. With the amount of d-CON that he put in the area, most of us figured there wasn’t a mouse within three miles. But about ten years after Dennis had completed his mouse-proofing efforts, the mice were back with a vengeance. Part of the problem was that the hunting shack was aging. Having been built on piers with only clay soil to support the place, the shack was settling, and new cracks and entry points provided opportunities for nesting and breeding. We had won the battle but not the war. More steel wool, more caulking, more d-CON, and more traps were put out.
During deer season 2005, my son Ollie decided it was time to intervene and came up with a solution for our mouse problems. He went on the Internet and found a new mouse trap aptly called “the Wheel of Death.” It has been our salvation. The wheel is a simple contraption for eliminating mice. First, take an old bucket, poke a hole on opposite sides, and run a wire coat hanger through the holes. Then, punch holes through an empty tuna can with the lid still attached or an empty plastic pop bottle with the cap still on. The can or bottle is threaded and centered on the coat hanger in the middle of the bucket. This is the wheel, and the rigid coat hanger wire serves as the axle. Coat the wheel with peanut butter. Partially fill the bucket with six or more inches of old motor oil or antifreeze so the liquid doesn’t freeze when the weather turns cold. Finally, lean a wooden stick up against the bucket to serve as a ramp for the mouse to climb up to the rim of the bucket. The mouse smells and sees the peanut butter and crawls out on the wire to the wheel. As soon as the mouse reaches the wheel, the wheel starts spinning and the mouse falls off the wheel into the motor oil or antifreeze, quickly drowning.
To add a little sport to the Wheel of Death, we started a pool to see who could guess how many mice would meet their demise over the course of the deer season. Everyone put in a dollar along with their guess. At the end of the season, we drained the pail and lying on the bottom were thirty-seven mice. Unbelievable! Barry won the pool with his guess of thirty-six.
The Wheel is probably not something that you would want sitting in the middle of your living room, but it works perfectly well for hunting shacks, garages, basements, and other areas where mice are abundant and need to be controlled.