This is out of left field. It's marginally real estate related, but not really. Mice are a thing again.
At my first place, even after The Dog banished moles from the yard and wreaked havoc on errant squirrels and raccoons, I would still get mice. I'd know they were back when I'd find a dime sized hole in a bottom corner of the dog food bag. Then I'd put a trap in the closet and in a few days I wouldn't have mice for another month or two. Last house didn't have mice. First rental did. This house, the neighbor said he had mouse problems until I moved in and they went away. After my dog died, he said they came back.
Hadn't seen any in my house myself. Did see a few turds, but I was able to rationalize them as old ones I'd missed while cleaning up when I moved in. Until I got a new stove. Cleaning out the old storage tray, I found mouse turds in it. The smoking gun. Even so, I held off. But I dont' have a mop bucket. I use the kitchen trash can as a bucket when I mop or wash the car. So I had it over at the rental while I was getting that cleaned up. Just a trash bag under the sink at home. And when I went to take it out, trash fell out a bunch of small holes in the bottom of it. So it was on.
Now I want to say, the person who said "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door," I don't think they were speaking literally. The point was that the mousetrap is pretty well figured out and hard to improve on. So my question is, why do people keep trying to improve on it and why is the classic mousetrap of the 1970s so hard to find? What are the options? Poison? Yeah. Because I want the neighbor's dogs to die from eating a dead poisoned mouse. Glue boards? Sure. Because nothing says "humane" like finding a mouse stuck to a board and then having to deal with that. Nope. I want the plain old wood board with the spring-loaded snapper and a set-trip that latches onto that copper sear with the little roll/loop that you stuff cheese into. But apparently you can't have that. It took about a month before I finally found the basic wood trap. But even then, they always fuck it up by replacing the sear with a yellow plastic one that is adorably shaped like a slice of cheese. Super. Except the fuckers don't work. I spent 5 minutes Sunday night, trying to get the catch to not slip off the baited trip. Finally wound up bending things until it would stay.
Checked it a few times with no results. Just about trying to convince myself that it was all in my head and that I really DIDN'T have mice, but tonight the trap had moved an inch or two and there was no bait on it.
So I did some more fiddling with it and put it back in place. A few minutes ago, I heard a sharp "CLICK!" in the other room and realized what it was. Decided it was less unpleasant to try to get a dead mouse off the trap than to get another trap tuned so it would actually work, rebaited and replaced. Now we'll see if we just had one interloper or more.
It's hard to get around how much killing life entails. Roaches, beetles, wasps, hornets, carpenter ants...I don't even blink at this point. But even if you want to grow some of your own food, it comes down to killing. Eventually chickens stop laying enough eggs, so into the pot with them. If you want milk from goats, they need to have babies. But you don't need more goats every year. Shit, even fruits and vegetables. Read the instructions: "Plant 1 inch apart. After 6 weeks, thin 50% of the weakest plants...." Killing. Death. Death makes the world go 'round. "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."