My Mother told me before she died that she was going to come back and haunt me, but she was going to come back as a Scrabbling Noise in the closet, so I’d never really know if it was her or mice. And, whaddya know, I have a scrabbling noise in the closet.

Well, I’ve finally worked it out: it’s mice. I’ve been bailing them out of the mousetrap as soon as I can set it. The horrible thing is, I haven’t even had to re-bait the trap. Apparently, the smell of Bob’s final agony is not enough to overcome the smell of sweet, sweet peanut butter.

My little studio upstairs is the warmest room in the house, at least when the water heater or central heat is going. That’s because all the water pipes run along the outside of the walls. This attracts all sorts of vermin, not just me.

I hate doing this. There’s the horribleness of emptying the trap (all clean kills so far, at least). But also, I rather like mice. I used to keep them as pets.

Oh, well. At least it’s not my spectral mother!