Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1912 — GETTING RID OF MICE [ARTICLE]

GETTING RID OF MICE

LITTLE PESTS IN A TRAP OF THEIR OWN MAKING. Expensive Patented Snares Not In 11 With the Sugar Bag, to Which Housekeeper Hereafter Will Pin All Her Faith. Mice always bother the people who do light housekeeping more than the ordinary householder, probably bo cause the former is more apt to have few mouse-tight receptacles for food. Various traps have been tried by one couple who indulge in light housekeeping in a three-room apartment, says the Philadelphia Record. Sometimes, at large Intervals, they managed to catch one of the pests. Every scheme of baiting and setting trape which they could find or Invent was tried and the mice continued to eal everything they could get at, falling back on a diet of clothes when every bit of food had been successfully cached. The mice seemed too wise to try the traps, no matter how fresh and well toasted was the cheese and bacon rind. Utee couple was almost In despair, and had nearly decided upon using poisons, to which; for sanitary reasons, thev had hesitated to resort. The mice themselves, waxing over greedy, fell Into a trap of their own Betting, and one has been caught eVery day or two until now there are only one or two left, but the happy housekeepers have great hopes of catching them all. One of the few provisions which had not been stored was the sugar, which Is bought in a large, rectangular box, holding five pounds. The cover was slit a little way at one end and the sugar bowl filled by pouring from this aperture. The sugar wa* left out. because it was thought that mice did not possess a sweet tooth. Then one day when a large quantity of the boxful had been removed at one time, the woman opened the closet door, to stand frightened at some scrambling sounds she heard. She quickly located them in the box of sugar and realized what had happened. The mice had discovered the sugar and had been feeding from it. gaining the tiny opening from a shelf beside which the box stood. She had taken out so much sugar that on its- last trip the mouse, in its sudden fright, could not make the leap which would carry it through the small hole. The woman quickly put a piece of sugar over the opening and then carried the box to a pail of water, into which she shook the mouse. Several others have trapped themselves in the same way and the ♦oman declares that when they have baten all the sugar she will rebalt the box with some more, and never, never spend any more money on patent traps.