Whose House Is It, Anyway?

The doorbell rang.

I was fence straddling the fine line between slumber and wakefulness at the end of a short afternoon nap.

Rubbing my eyes.

I dressed quickly, put on my baseball cap (I wear it as a kindness to others) and opened the front door.

There stood a man about my size wearing a similar baseball cap.

He was younger than me.

I could only guess about his hairline, but I’ll wager it might have already been receding.

“Yes?”

“We’re servicing your area,” he began.

Then proceeded to tell me he would spray for various insects and vermin at a discounted price.

Did I know the names of my two neighbors on either side of me?

Was that designed to put me more at ease?

Or off guard?

Did I have spiders or mice?

Was I afflicted with them?

Photo: author

He pointed to the eaves where there were some visible spider webs.

“We take care of these and in other places of your house. We’ll throw in your garage for free.”

Oh, and did I have mice?

Might I want to be free of them?

I asked for his card.

Seeming to lack one, he asked for a piece of paper, upon which he wrote his name, the name of the company and their phone number.

“Let me think about it,” I said as I closed the door.

I examined the piece of paper.

“__ Pest Control.”

He left.

Photo: Author

I had asked him where his company was located.

He named a city in the same county as mine.

But the phone number he wrote down was odd.

It had an unfamiliar area code.

I looked up the 3 digit number.

It was located in some county in UT.

I live in a state other than UT.

I then looked up the company on YELP.

They were indeed allegedly located in a city near me.

But their overall rating was only 3.5/5 from over 500 reviewers.

381 five star reviews.

216 one star.

A smattering in-between.

Surely I could do better.

I then did some thinking.

I do have spiders.

I knew that.

But I had never awakened to find spiders in my mouth.

According to an old wives’ tale, a person, on average, takes in 8 spiders in their mouth per night in his or her sleep.

But none were the brown recluse or black widow.

I was not at risk for harm from them.

As for mice?

Over a year ago I was away at work, about 150 km from home, when I got a text message from the two Ukrainians who lived with me for close to two years, about mice.

Their message said we had some.

They had discovered them.

What to do?

I instructed them to go to a local hardware store and get a trap.

One large enough to trap but not harm the animal.

(For they are one of the Almighty’s creatures, too, are they not?

Noah may have taken some aboard the Ark, for all I knew).

They did so, and, in the ensuing months we caught no fewer than 20 mice.

The rectangular box trap contained an ingenious hook upon which we hung small bits of cheese or other bait.

Photo: author

When the hook was disturbed, a trap door would swing shut, trapping the creature inside.

The plastic trap was not air-tight.

There were air-holes so the trapped animal would survive.

They (and I) took the mouse to a nearby field, where we released it.

It would likely take some time before it found its way back to my house.

If ever.

I don’t know how mice communicate with one another, but the mice population inside the house subsequently diminished to the point I put the trap outside the house, where it resides to this day.

And anyway, mice don’t eat much.

I realistically can afford to feed both of us, if it came to that.

It never came to that.

I am reasonably careful, and, unlike Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, I haven’t succumbed to hanta virus or some similar malady.

And I got to thinking.

Who was here first?

If that matters?

To me it does matter.

Historically, the white man has displaced, plundered and uprooted indigenous peoples all over the globe.

From the Canadians to the Australians.

From Canada to Australia, from South America to Africa.

The Canadians uprooted the Inuit, the Australians uprooted the aborigines.

The Spanish conquistadores uprooted native Americans in South America.

The Dutch uprooted the Bantus in South Africa.

Etc.

You may argue the white man represented progress and the natives the opposite, but even if this were true (I find it debatable) at what cost?

In certain places, at least, the cost seems to have been great, and indefensible.

Surely, before the building of this house around 1990, there were spiders and mice.

Ploughing the ground level for the foundation of the house may have disturbed their habitat.

Their lives, like most animals other than humans, are largely taken up by merely trying to survive.

Eating, drinking and sleeping.

Their lives are little else.

Begetting may be one of the only pleasures they have.

So I ask myself, what right have I to try to get rid of them?

Perhaps, in the big scheme of things, they have every right to be here.

Maybe more right than I have.

That was a sobering thought.

Just because I am larger and more evolved (maybe), am I automatically entitled to preferentially occupy the same space as they?

I consigned the piece of paper upon which was written the name and number of the pest control company to the circular file that sits on the floor of my office.

I would take care of my fellow creatures my own way.

Perhaps learn to live with them, if nothing else.

Thoughts of Henry David Thoreau came to me.

Besides being born in MA, like I was, he is one of my heroes.

What would he have done had he encountered fellow creatures like the spider and the mouse at the house he built at Walden Pond in Concord, MA?

When he went to discover the secrets Nature perhaps was just waiting to reveal to a man such as himself, if only given the chance?

I think I knew.