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Best Cordless Clippers in 2023

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March of the Mammals: Tales of Autumnal Encounters with Spiders, Mice and Other Pests

It's Autumn, which means it's time to start pulling out the bug spray, mouse traps and cobweb clippers. But for the love of God, learn from my mistakes

Warning: I've killed a lot of mice, and I like talking about it. If you don't like hearing about it, then don't read. But if you want to hear some funny anecdotes, and cautionary tales, then read on...

Here they come, two-by-two. See them march in a line, beating a path to your door. Autumn may be the season for festive scarves and little boots, but it is also the season for declining temperatures and dying plant life. Imagine, if you care, the scene: clenched buttocks, horrified squealing, fingers pointing shakily, and Autumn's great motto: "WHERE ARE ALL THESE SPIDERS COMING FROM?"

Well, we know where they are coming from, don't we- outside. This is the time of year when your bath becomes a rehabilitation center for maimed and shell shocked spiders, and your light bulb fixtures fill with fruit flies (how do they even get in there?). Little scampering insects and mice scramble into your warm, cozy house filled with plentiful supplies of food. Of course, they can appear at any time of the year, but in September they come in numbers, and they are bigger. So big that my only way of getting rid of spiders, power hosing them down the drain with the shower head, has failed. Last week, I found a spider in the toilet bowl, and have spent far too much time wondering if it was in there before I got to it, or if there are arachnids crawling around in my pants, or worse, in my ass.

But the spiders, well they're harmless enough, right? And unless you are as happy-go-lucky as my father with the bug spray, nobody is going to die from exposure to flies. But the mice, they're the ones that make you worry. I have the pleasure of living in a room with a hot-press as an annex. It appears that this is the Achilles' tendon of my father's brilliant designs, because mice flow out of there like they are getting bitten by radioactive spiders (I'm telling you, they're getting bigger and I want to know why!). Last year, we had a nest of mice move in. And let me tell you, every mouse-ridder in the world has been tested in my house. If you would like it, here are some reviews:

1. The humble mouse trap. I like mouse traps. I know people think they're inhumane and grisly, but to be honest I've seen worse (see Poison). Plus, you don't necessarily have to use cheese. I know this, because last year a mouse ate through a bag of Jelly Tots in my handbag like frat boy with the munchies. There is nothing quite like waking up suddenly when you hear that snap in the middle of the night, and then hearing your father whoop with joy from the next room.

The problem with mouse traps, of course, is that they don't always work. We have all experienced our own little Jerry who is far too clever and elusive to fall for a trap. Or, they catch the wrong limb, and the mouse is left with a new fun leg brace, or a torture device that will kill him very, very slowly.

2. Poison. The theory behind poison is that the mouse or rat is already out of the house before it dies, because it can take several days for the poison to fully kill them. This is sometimes the case, but there is always the fear that they die inside your walls. It is also dreadfully cruel, sucking all the moisture out of their cells until they dehydrate. And I can tell you from experience that sometimes their organs rupture.

I want to share with you my worst mouse story. It involves poison. I was lying in bed, listening to music. When I took my headphones out, I could hear it: the telltale scratching of little mouse claws on carpeting. I ran to turn on the light, narrowly missing stepping on the mouse, and saw him. Until now, and ever since, my experience his been with field mice. They are cute, in a squidgy kind of way, and very small. But this guy was the living image of Mighty Mouse, and he was slowly dying. I fled the room and didn't go back for weeks, but my dad very kindly filled me in on the details. The mouse was pregnant, and her little belly was exploded all over my carpet. There is still a tiny blood stain there. If you are going to use poison, you are going to have to be prepared for the possibility that one night you will have to scrape a dead mouse off your carpet or out of your wall.

3. Electronic Pest Repellent. For a very long time, I was a big advocate of these. Just plug it in and it emits a high frequency noise along all the wires inside your house, driving the sensitive little mammals away. There are two main problems with this. The first is that if you are a teenager, like my brother and I were, you can hear that high pitched noise. It's basically the same thing McDonald's use to get rid of kids with hoodies. And nobody over 25 will believe you. The second problem is that, unlike you, the mice eventually become immune. Tinnitus is really no match for starvation in a cat-eat-mouse world.

4. Humane Mouse Traps. These are for the kinder folk out there. The ones that like to glue Speedy Gonzalez's feet to a box and then release him into the wild, shouting: "Be free!" A week later, they will catch him again. And the week after that, ad infinitum. Also, just like regular mouse traps, you only bag stupid mice.

And if you are cocky enough to think you can catch a mouse with your bare hands: a cautionary tale. My brother found a mouse in our living room last year, in the middle of the day. Mice are usually nocturnal, but a bad winter last year got the poor souls all confused. My brother, ever the hero, decided that poison, or throwing a shoe at it (my suggestion) would be cruel. He decided he would catch it with a shoe box. The room was small and boxy, and while I can forever cherish the memory of my Neanderthal brother lumbering after an infinitely smaller, quicker and more intelligent creature than himself, you do not have that luxury. Needless to say, the mouse won.

The fact is, that if you want to really rid your house of a mouse, you are probably going to resort to killing it. Some alternatives may be attempted that seem kinder, but rarely are. Yesterday, my father and brother were discussing the time my father found a nest of about forty mice nesting in our shed, clinging to a big sheet of tarpaulin (if you have not already guessed, I live in the country). He decided to dislodge their little vice grips on the tarp with the power hose. As far as he was concerned, it was successful, and not unnecessarily cruel. My brother argued that it was one of the most grisly scenes he had ever seen outside of a Tarantino movie.

"I don't know what you're talking about," my dad argued.

"Dad," my brother said with wide eyes and an incredulous tone, "half of their heads fell off!"