I’ve loved grilling ever since my first little hibachi. Cooking out is easy, fast, and simplifies summer living. At least it did till last month.
That’s when I lifted the lid of our fancy gas grill to flip some burgers, and found an empty nest of straw and leaves in the back corner of the grate.
“What do you suppose this is?” I asked my former Boy Scout husband.
“Hard to say,” he said. ”Maybe birds. Maybe something else.”
Something else sounded ominous, so I swept out the leaves but, thanks to my daughter, stopped short of firing it up to kill all the germs.
“You don’t know what’s been in there!” she railed. “You need to scrape it and disinfect it, run the grates through the dishwasher, and then fire it up.”
“Would you be willing to wash anything in the dishwasher after that?” I asked.
“Maybe not.”
So I slammed down the lid, threw the burgers in a fry pan, and packed up for vacation.
By the time we returned, nest-a-phobia was in my rear-view mirror. But once again, when I lifted the lid, burgers in hand, there was another empty. Only now, there was no mystery.
Very visible under the grate was a wiggly gray mice-y mass, tiny tails flipping exuberantly while the Boy Scout and I reviewed the options.
“They are probably shrews,” he opined, based on the sharpness of their noses. “Shrews aren’t likely to go into the house.” That momentary relief died when Google quickly produced a description of a “house shrew.” It died again when an exterminator, on the premises to look for ants, classified them as “house mice,” but happily found no evidence that their friends or parents had entered our dwelling.
He explained that our big covered grill was actually the perfect dwelling for mice – warm and safe from predators.
“I’d have to charge you $250 to remove them,” he said. “We only have a mouse-in-the-house rate.” So we decided to take mouse-in-the-grill matters into our own hands.
My husband headed to the hardware store for $10 worth of tiny “have-a-heart” traps, each the size of a box of staples, loaded them with chunks of Snickers bars, arranged them on the grill, lowered the lid, and waited to check them in the morning.
“When the traps go off, I will transport them to another area and let them go,” he said, rather confidently.
As someone who always identified more with Peter Rabbit than Mr. McGregor, I applauded this gentle approach but still half hoped the traps would be empty and the renegade mice would break free.
I’m happy to report that two of them, apparently suspicious of Snickers, stayed hunkered down under the grate, while their two more enterprising sibs made a run for it through the bottom vent. The traps were pristine. By nightfall, all critters had vacated the premises and left us only to deal with the sanitation of the grill.
Suggestions from friends and neighbors raced in, depending on the level of squeamishness – buy a new grill, replace the grate only, replace the grate and “flavor bars,” or simply scrape and Lysol the housing.
In the end, we did all but buy a new grill. Not that I’m completely opposed to that idea. How about a hibachi?
Copyright 2015 Pat Snyder
