Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie, Part II

She is free! Or rather she is caught! Thank you to all who left comments, because I read them all, taking them to heart. If you have not read the comments in that post, please do, some of them are a riot. Ferrets, dead hamsters in people’s cars… Wow.

If Anita of Fighting Inertia were in town… well, the girl would get a big hug and a free lunch on me. She saved my dry wall. I just had no idea… This is what happened.

I went to Home Depot and bought myself a drywall cutting knife thing. It is sharp… you can just tell through the package... and it felt really nice in my hand. It had a nice weight to it. As I walked to the counter holding that thing in my hand, I kept thinking, “That’s not a knife… THIS is a knife!” Heh, I felt very bold, like ‘mess with me and you will definitely DIE’. Probably good reason I don’t own a gun. I’m bold enough. A weapon makes me too confident. Bad thing.

I get home after picking up my boys and I’m mentally ready to start cutting. I decided to wait until my night before I started carving my walls. I needd to wait until I could hear her… being a nocturnal animal and all.

The boys assured me though they could find her as they had done in the morning. When they found out she was missing, I found them with one of our old stethoscopes in their hands, scope to the wall, listening for her. They seemed certain they would be able to hear her, but since she was sleeping, they could not. It was very cute seeing them huddled to the wall, with the stethoscope, moving it up and down, trying to hear for her!

I had searched the baseboards of the rooms, I had pulled everything out of his closet, I had opened cabinets, and nothing. I found nothing. Then I got an e-mail from Anita talking about toe kicks and holes on the bottom of vanities. I looked down at the kick plate and saw nothing. For some reason I decided to lie flat on my back and look and when I did, there it was… a hole just big enough for a hamster to crawl into, between the vanity and the dry wall. I got close and it smelled like her, that musty smell of a hamster.

We took 4 big seeds and placed one in the hole and 3 on the outside and left. For me it was just a test to see if she could find her way out and if that’s where she was actually located. My eldest and I came back from Karate that night and as we walked into the bathroom and I flipped on the light, we saw a tiny little rear fuzzy leg being hoisted back into the hidey hold… all seeds were gone.

Luckily, after receiving Anita’s note, I had my husband buy a Havaheart trap. I set it out for her and had her back in her cage by 10PM. The funny thing is, I have a horrible time getting traps to work when I NEED them to. My sister informed me it is time for me to post on my rat tale from last year… where I failed to get the trap to work for 4 days, feeding an 8 inch canal rat, who had taken up residence in my car. Funny stuff.

Anyway, I set the trap for the hamster, I tested it like it said to do and it worked. I tested it multiple times and each time I was able to spring it. I walked in the bathroom at just before 10, and there she is, with her favorite seeds sitting on the OUTSIDE of the trap. She didn’t spring it. Luckily she is tame, so I got some carrots and she came to me.

She is pining for her old hidey hole, though. I can tell. As soon as I put her in her cage she filled her cheeks with her bedding, then sat by her door like I was going to let her out and she could nest. Yeah, right.

So the saga is over and it was a good ending. No carving of my drywall. No dead rodents stinking up my house. No more marital strife. That is ALWAYS a good thing!