T

here’s a mouse in my house, more cunning than the devil himself.

Not only does he constantly outwit my roommates and I, but he is adding much unwanted destruction to our apartment. He tears holes in backpacks, rips the carpet with his claws and, worst of all, leaves droppings everywhere.

Trust me, the ‘P’ in the word ‘pest’ stands for poop.

It is haunting my dreams.

The mouse has been nesting in the walls for a few months. I remember telling my landlord that we had a mouse. She replied “You have a mouse?” then chuckled heartily and gave us some glue traps.

Although grateful for the traps, I was unenthused by her optimistic demeanor. This rodent is no laughing matter.

Our house has become a warzone.

My roommate Parker and I devised a plan to leave stale pizza in the box on the floor. Did I mention we put a glue trap on the pizza? It was a fairly obvious trick, but man’s brain is much greater than mouse − or so we thought.

It turns out a mouse doesn’t need to eat an entire pizza, so he didn’t go into the trap.

We thought the mouse couldn’t resist such a temptation. But he did. He ate a few bites of pizza, then crapped it out on our kitchen floor.

After we lost the battle of the pizza box, I called my father.

He told me to keep the traps close to the walls and to use the ultimate weapon: peanut butter.

No mouse can resist that ooey-gooey brown paste.

Technically, he was right. The mouse ate the peanut butter and got stuck in a trap − but it turns out my landlord gave us some fairly second-rate traps and the creative little rodent escaped yet again.

Perhaps we will ensnare this beast in the future. For now, though, he waits in the shadows for us to lay our tired eyes to rest and leave us some unwelcome presents.