Animal Infestation

My flat is slowly being taken over by animals of various kinds.... It's like a bad horror movie. Tonight was the night of The Maggoty Mouse Hunt

1) The Ants.
They have been coming for a few months now. I've spotted them in my food cupboard and they sent scouts upstairs to my room and seem to enjoy my leg-waxing kit (it is sweet and sticky). They are easily assailable - small and slow. I kill them one by one.

2) The Spider.
English-guy#1 woke up with an itchy spider bite on his neck one night. He thinks it jumped in through his open window.

3) The Maggots.
I was putting the rubbish out tonight and since I'd been away on rubbish day the last few weeks, we had some rather old bags nobody else had thought to put out. I peered into one and saw a festering pile of maggots. I was bemused by this. It's happened once before in our flat, months ago. Maggots are fairly harmless to me. Gross but harmless.

4) The Mouse.
We have known for about a month that there is (hopefully only one!) a mouse living in our kitchen. It seems to enjoy one of the lower shelves and our cupboard-of-rubbish-under-the-stairs. I had a face off with it once. It got away (I let it - to be honest). Tonight, whilst I was looking bemusedly at the maggots, the little blighter jumped out of the bag and damned near landed on me. It continued to skitter about all the walls of the kitchen whilst I nimbly tried to jump out of its way. I had jandals on - this made me even more nervous about vermin being around my feet. If you know my lack of grace and coordination, the image of me 'nimbly' jumping out of the way of a mouse might be comedic. Very rarely do I move quickly. We had it cornered behind the fridge briefly, then it made a dash for freedom.

Comedy ensued. The mouse raced into the lounge. My yells of surprise had alerted the English-guys to the mouse's presence. It disappeared somewhere under the couch. There was a moment of calm. I went and got my mouse-catching-container from the kitchen, someone took out the rubbish. After my first face off with the mouse, where I had been sorely lacking for catching-apparatus, I had scouted out an ideal container, just for this type of ocassion. At this point English-guy#1 noticed the maggots had leaked onto the kitchen floor and nearly fainted. That concerned him more than the mouse.

We got a pincer movement going in the lounge - all with containers and cushions in hand - and vowed to make the mouse go out the front door. At that point it lept out somewhere between my feet, making me jump and scream, and disappeared again. English-guy#2 became the mouse scout and swore it was under the far section of the couch. We pulled the other sections away to give it less exit routes. English-guy#1 lifted the couch right up.... but there was no sign of the mouse. I accused the mouse-scout of having failed at his job..... but then we heard a scratching sound. The mouse had somehow lept up into the couch (much like how people cling to the bottom of cars or roofs in houses in chase scenes of Hollywood movies - this mouse has style).... and jumped out of it. Luckily it ran right out the door for safety.

YEAH - AND DON'T COME BACK, VERMIN! I yelled after him.

All this while Canadian-flatmate had been on a phone conversation to a friend back home. The person he was calling was very amused by the commentary of maggots and mice and the yelling coming from the rest of us. I think it may have sounded like his friend was living in a hell-hole .....

Note: I was incredibly brave the whole time! I did not scream in a girly way (only in a surprised way, which is very natural) and I played a key role in the plan to force the mouse out. I did not shie away from the action. And I was the one who then cleaned up the maggots. And I can change lightbulbs. I am SUPER GIRL!