Peggy’s Bucket of Doom

Our neighbor Peggy invented a better mousetrap. Or at least a friend of hers did, or maybe a friend of a friend. Regardless, provisional credit goes to Peggy, author, pediatrician, world traveler, and neighbor, who passed along to me the secret of the Bucket of Doom.

The Bucket of Doom is not a mousetrap you want to use in your kitchen or underneath your bed. It seems almost designed for crawlspaces, where it can sit, killing mice by the tens, not needing help or attention for weeks at a stretch.

You need the following:

• A metal bucket
• A can, like a soft drink can. Prefer a can with thin, easily pierced sides.
• A metal coat hangar, or a length of stiff wire.
• A scrap of wood for a ramp, allowing mice to reach the top of the bucket.
• A couple gallons of anti-freeze.
• A cup of peanut butter.

Directions:

1. Poke the wire through the sides of the soft drink can.
2. Attach the wire to the sides of the bucket, with the can hanging in the middle.
3. Pour antifreeze into the bucket until it’s about 1/3 full. The anti-freeze must be deep enough to drown a mouse. Yes, mousetraps are cruel.
4. Slather the can with peanut butter.
5. Put the bucket where mice are likely to find it.
6. Last step, lean a piece of wood against the side of the bucket where the wire is attached.

The piece of wood is a ramp, allowing the mice to reach the rim of the bucket and start salivating over the delish peanut butter you slathered on the can, just out of reach along that wire…splash. Ooops.

I’ve found as many as eight mice at a time in my bucket. Rumor has it that Peggy has found dozens at a time. I use a couple pieces of wood to lift out the little corpses, then drop them on a newspaper and wrap them up. Since they’re alcohol-saturated they burn well.