The Creature

One of our holiday stressors involved having a creature living in our ceiling for over a month.

Scotty spends a lot of nights on the couch (I'll just let you think what you will of that), and he started hearing something moving around and scratching in the ceiling above our bay window. Then one morning, while we were laying bed, we heard something running through the walls behind our heads. It didn't sound mouse-like. It sounded bigger - like a raccoon... or a mountain lion.

That day, Scotty started an attempt to end the problem. The part of the ceiling the creature lived in is hard to access, though. It took equipment. Cameras, selfie sticks, flashlights, and the like.

Scotty first tried putting some poison in the area - this being a good option because, supposedly, after a creature eats the poison, it seeks the outdoors for relief. The last thing I needed was a dead, rotting, mystery rodent somewhere in my walls or ceiling (it's a worst fear of mine).

A week later, we could still hear the beast playing in the ceiling.

Using a camera again, Scotty removed some siding from the outside of our house and took a video of the area. The animal wasn't there (I'm sure it runs from cell phones), but it left a trail of poopies, leading us to believe that we were dealing with a common mouse, except one that weighed twenty pounds and was a genius.

Scotty put four traps in the ceiling with peanut butter on them, and the mouse (or MOUSE, I should say) licked the traps clean without making them snap.

The following day, Scotty reset the traps and squished cheese very thoroughly around the triggers. The next night, we had success! Scotty retrieved the traps to find... the tiniest, dwarfiest mouse that ever did exist

Which means there must still be a mountain lion on the loose somewhere!