Heebie-Jeebies

Last night when we arrived home from our day, while I was getting S out of the car, I noticed that there was a spill on the floor by her car seat. Apparently she hadn't finished her loved Vanilla Milk that morning (first time ever) and left it in the car when we arrived at her school. I picked it up, put it in the door pocket, tamped up the liquid as best I could with a napkin, and made a mental note to come back and finish cleaning it all up after I got the kids inside.

That never happened. The evening got away from us.

This morning while getting into the car, I saw the milk box again, briefly berated myself silently for not cleaning it up last night, then noticed something was different about it. There was now a hole about 3/4" across in the top of the box and the straw was back on the car floor.

Uh-oh.

A mouse.

In my car.

As we were already running late, I couldn't go back into the house to get anything, and what would I have gotten anyway? Down at the bus stop, I enlisted M to help me pick up all the trash in the car, containing it as best I could. I took a good look around. Although there were a couple small tufts of white stuff under the third row seat, I didn't see other evidence. Knock-wood, I think this is a recent resident. And hopefully singular. I had vacuumed the car quite well about 5 weeks ago, before we went on vacation, and saw no evidence then

Still, grossed-out enough, I dropped S at school and went straight to the car detailing place the next town over. They have promised that they know how to deal with such issues - and they are going to make the interior of my 5 year old car spotless. No more bits to attract mice. I hope. Pray?

I'm still going to pick up some humane traps to put under the third row seat, just in case. And maybe put some repellents around the driveway to deter them from that whole area. Mice can do some real damage if not dealt with promptly.

Meanwhile, I have a rental car and a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.

UPDATE: While my car is now remarkably clean, the kid at the detailing shop said he found no actual mice, and was sure there were none in there. Phew. Kind of. I set a trap in the car last night, just in case. And yes, there was a mouse in it this morning. Looks like I'll be setting more just in case traps - the kind that don't put the kids at any risk and I don't have to actually see the little critter. Euw.