Restaurant Dishwasher: The First Thing You Should Do if You Find a Dead Mouse in Your Dishwasher: a blog of what to do if you discover a mouse stuck in your dishwasher.
A dead mouse in your dishwasher is not something that anyone would want to find. But, now that you have found one, it’s time for you to act fast and smart. You’re going to have to decide how to get rid of it, and what measures you’ll need to take so that it doesn’t happen again.
Let’s begin by deciding on the best way for you to eradicate the problem, and then we’ll look at the next steps you should take so that this problem doesn’t happen again.
*The First Thing You Should Do if You Find a Dead Mouse in Your Dishwasher:*
a blog of what to do if you discover a mouse stuck in your dishwasher.**
The first thing you should do if you find a dead mouse in your dishwasher:
Don’t scream.
If you are alone, find something to scream into. If you live with other people, they probably don’t care about your feelings enough to help, so you may as well save your breath
If there is a living mouse in the dishwasher, try not to startle it. You are the only thing between it and certain death, so be nice.
Get some gloves! Some people think this is silly but I have heard many a tale of woe from people who handled mice without gloves and contracted some kind of terrible disease. Better safe than sorry!
Get a trash bag or small box. If it is a trash bag, poke some holes in it for air circulation.
Move everything out of the way that might be near the mouse. Mice can jump pretty high for their size, so be careful.
Put on your gloves and gently remove the dead mouse from the dishwasher by its tail. The head may come off in your hand and if this happens just put it in the trash bag too. Wrap up the body in some newspaper or paper towels; you don’t want any blood or fluids to leak out onto your carpet or floor
My parents are in town visiting and last night I cooked them dinner. When I went to pack up the dishwasher this morning, I discovered that there was a dead mouse stuck in the filter screen.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Ew!” (I thought it too.) But you shouldn’t be grossed out by the thought of a dead mouse in your dishwasher. You should be grossed out by the thought of cleaning it up!
So here’s what you do if you find a dead mouse in your dishwasher:
1. Get some rubber gloves.
2. Take off the filter screen (it should just lift off) and put it in a bucket with soap and hot water.
3. Make sure there’s no food left on any dishes before you put them back in the dishwasher, because you don’t want to wash dirty dishes again later.
4. Put the dishes back into the dishwasher and run it according to normal instructions.
When I was a child, my family moved to a new house. It was an old house, and the people who had lived there before had left behind them not only their junk, but also the carcasses of the mice they had caught in traps. So when we moved in we found both dead mice and traps.
The traps were sticky. Trapped mice were hard to get off them, and often got damaged in the process. I don’t remember what we did with the traps once we’d got the mice off them. Perhaps we threw them away in disgust; perhaps we left them for any new mice that made it past our cat.
I do remember what we did with the dead mice: put them in the dishwasher. The dishwasher was self-cleaning; you just loaded it up with dirty dishes and turned it on, and everything came out clean again. We didn’t have a garbage disposal; instead there were two small strainers in the sink, one of which trapped food particles that might clog up the drains if they went down them unstrained (the other one trapped bits of food that might clog up your throat). So if you wanted to dispose of something, you could either throw it away or run it through the dishwasher
1. Disconnect the dishwasher from the power source and water supply.
2. Don rubber gloves and safety goggles if you have them.
3. Place a bucket on the floor near the open door of the dishwasher.
4. Gently lift mouse out of dishwasher, being careful not to drop it into the bucket. (You don’t want to have to clean up after your cleanup.)
5. Place mouse in plastic bag and seal bag tightly; deposit in trash can outside.
6. Close door of dishwasher and reconnect power and water sources; run through one full cycle, using plenty of detergent, to sanitize machine.*
*The best method for disposing of a dead mouse is dependent upon your specific situation, including local regulations for disposal of household pests, personal preferences and risk tolerance, etc. The author does not endorse any particular method of disposal over another.