This is so not politically correct and kinda icky. You've been warned. 

In the beginning of most marriages and for those of us without children, pretty much throughout the marriage, there are certain givens. In our house I clean, grocery shop and handle the finances. Kevin does the bathrooms and stuff I can't or won't do. Like climbing ladders. I'm scared to death of heights. Fixing things. And killing rodents.

Yup. Let me explain before you label us as animal abusers. Catch and release does not work. When we lived in Phoenix I had a rule. Pack rats (big suckers, like the size of a feral cat) are nasty creatures. They steal all your crap, tear it up then carry it off to some place you won't find till you need to. Like our pump house for the water well pumps. Three damn feet deep of teddy bear cholla, pieces of expensive horse blankets, landscape irrigation parts, you name it the littles bastards stole it. So now you are thinking 'hell yes you are awful people.'

But, I am not finished.

Although it was a several hour job cleaning out the mess to get to the pumps when we had a well issue (four houses shared the wells on our property), we made do. I did not declare war on the mangy bastards till they invaded our garage.

I drew the line there.

They had sheds and barns they could live in. But not the g'damn car and truck that cost us thousands in wiring repairs or the garage where we stored expensive horse equipment and art crap.

But, no, they just couldn't be satisfied.

The garage was ALWAYS kept closed but they had to eat the rubber from the bottom of the garage door and proceed to eat and destroy all my shit. 

Well, at the time we had two wolf hybrids, three cats and a crew of landscape laborers. I put a bounty on those nasty beasts. $10 a cabeza. The guys made a lot of money that day. And yet the battle continued. To this day I can't stand the sight of a rodent, big or small.

Fast forward to our new rental in New Orleans. We have, I should say, had, a really bad mouse problem. At least in my mind. One mouse I can tolerate but not the quantity we were catching. Thankfully, neighbors moved in with cats and the mouse problem is now the kitty's problem. 

Bottom line? One of you has to kill the varments. The other has to dispose of them. You are co-conspirators. You against them. Want your marriage to survive? Be each other's best friend... and rodent killer.

There will be no photos. I don't stand still long enough to get one.