A Mouse in the House

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Tomorrow my house will smell of peppermint. And wormwood. And lavender. It will also be very, very clean.

This afternoon I was sitting on the loo (yes, I know, too much information) when I saw a brown tail slide under the bathroom door and into my bedroom. My bedroom!?!

There is a mouse in the house.

I have never lived in a house with a mouse before. Cockroaches (shudder) and ants, yes, but no mice.

I googled mouse deterrents and apart from reading that a pair can breed up to 100 offspring in a year (yikes!), I also learn that the most effective approach to getting rid of them is to spring clean and declutter as you have never done before and fill the house with peppermint, as mice don't like the smell.

So tomorrow I'm off to buy peppermint oil and I'm going to scent a new batch of my homemade multipurpose cleaning spray with it. And then do a heck of a lot of spraying.

As it would happen, tonight for the first time I attended a local sustainability group. Some of the folk there suggested that mice also dislike lavender and wormwood.

I think I've found the mousehole - there is a broken tile in my bedroom fireplace that looks like its been pushed aside. That hole is now stuffed full of wormwood.

Tonight I will be sleeping with the blankets over my head and lavender under my pillow.

Maybe I need to get a cat.