A mouse in the house

Shortly after Christmas, one of our cats escaped out the basement door. Not-so-coincidentally it was the same day this happened. In the commotion of dealing with the water and having the plumber over, the door was left open for a couple of hours. The snuggly kitty stayed in and the mouse-killing-always-trying-to-escape kitty left (we did get him back about a month later, fortunately).

Unfortunately, while he was away a mouse got in the house. I came down with the brave new toddler early on a work day. The snuggly kitty was acting very odd, hunkered down in front of the oven. With a heavy heart, I looked under the oven with a flashlight and .... yeah.

Obviously the mouse didn't get into the house from that area - otherwise he would have disappeared. Since we had one potentially effective cat in the house, I pulled the oven away from the wall. Snuggly kitty rushed in. 30 seconds of squeaking later he came out with the mouse! Then he jogged to the dining room table, released the mouse to play, and promptly lost it. Idiot.

But I did see where the mouse went - it bolted to the corner of the dining room where the baseboard heating pipes run. After waiting a few minutes, I stuck my face in the corner. It certainly had at least an inch of space and was quite drafty. The quick solution was to fill in the corner with steel wool and seal the entire length of the wall with expanding foam.

It doesn't look too good, but it's a bit less drafty and hopefully more mouse proof. I may try to razor off the excess foam in the future and see if it's paintable. If I could paint it black, it would be invisible.

Snuggly cat was disappointed with the solution, though.