By Jim Hagarty
2006
If I was a mouse – not the wimpy and timid type of mouse – but the real, grey little rodent with the beady eyes and long tail, I would move to my place.
In a heartbeat.
The Hagarty estate screams mouse resort in so many ways, I would not be able to resist the lure. With a six-foot-high wooden fence around the backyard, it is as close to a gated community as a mouse could ever get.
Mouse dwellings located on the property are many and varied, the best of which are the two twin-tower condos at the back of the lot which, in an earlier life, were called plastic composters, one of them black, the other brown. Inside each one is a veritable mouse paradise with heaps of warm, black compost, that haven’t been spread on the flowerbeds in the past two years because the owner doesn’t want to disturb the tenants, which, if he hasn’t actually grown fond of them, is kind of intrigued by their industriousness and inventiveness.
Inside each apartment complex, the heaps of black matter have been formed over many months into deep little caves and highways and whenever the lid is raised for new vegetable scraps and other organic matter to be added, there is a great scurrying about of the occupants from hole to hole, cave to cave, and, having grown accustomed to the routine, the braver among them now sit and stare up at the big guy in the greasy green cap and glasses, about to dump a pail full of potato, orange and banana peelings onto their heads. Apparently, they love this, and if I were a mouse, l’d probably love it too. Imagine someone lifting the roof off your house twice a week and dumping all your favourite foods, all ready to eat, into your kitchen and you have a picture of what a great event this must be for them.
Yes, life is good in the condos, and the compost dwellers are a happy and sociable lot. They even have constructed a sort of compost highway connecting both boxes and if things get a little too intense in one, they all scram over to the other till the hubbub dies down.
Not many downsides here, unless you count the occasional alley cat who camps out before the condos for hours, waiting for a meal of his own. And there was that incident where the owner stuck a potato fork into the brew to stir it up, as is supposed to be done, and retrieved the fork to find a mouse impaled on one of the tines.
Fortunately for the mice, the fork has since broke and hasn’t been replaced. The tragedy is still whispered about by the elders at night after the mouselets are all tucked in. In time, they will take fork-safety training.
When life gets dull, there are trips to be made to the shed up by the house, where birdseed and other sweet confections can often be snacked on, a sort of mouse fast-food restaurant, if you will.
But the ultimate in mouse habitation is located in the big blue box the owners call their house, more specifically, the space between the basement cieling tiles and the floor joists. Warm heating pipes to snuggle up to. Acres of interesting places to explore. Privacy a Trappist monk would envy. It has it all. It is where condo dwellers go for their vacations.
But like all travel, in the big house there are some dangers. Two big cats wander the premises and so far have claimed six innocent lives. And when the cats aren’t after them, the humans are, with their little, peanut-butter-baited traps.
However, it is said those who are afraid to die are afraid to live and so the truly venturous among the mice population don’t mind rolling the dice for a little R&R.
Personally, if I was one of the mice, I’d pass on the house and stick to the condos. Sunday, both were filled to the brim with nice, dry maple leaves. How nice to even be provided blankets for the winter along with the free room and board.
