Mishik barbi?

I’ve been asking my students for the last week if anybody has an extra cat—“mishik barbi?” Mice have moved into our house, enjoying the warmth from the stove in our kitchen. Lately we’ve been lighting the stove, which heats a tank of hot water that circulates via pipes throughout the house, every evening. The coal for the stove is expensive, but the only alternative is electric heaters which put our electricity usage way over the newly imposed maximum. Each household can now only use 200 kilowatts of electricity a month due to the national shortage. If you use more, your electricity could simply be cut. And it is already shut off on a daily basis from noon to 5pm and then 11pm to 6am. It’s mind boggling to think of how much money the country must be losing in business everyday…

So unfortunately you can’t buy cats at the bazaar, but you can get this sticky black paper with mouse bait in the middle of it for about $.30. It’s a little gruesome, but the mice actually die stuck to the paper. There are some pictures on the back to show it works for cockroaches too. Thank god we don’t have any of those at our house, and I’m happy to say we’re now down a couple of mice too!