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His story began one morning in 2009 when a woman in College Station opened her shower curtain and found a live mouse staring back at her from inside the bathtub. Her scream probably reached most of the neighborhood.
She called Venus Pest Company, so I arrived prepared to confront the dangerous bathtub monster. The original version of this story gave me rubber boots and a hazmat suit. Neither was necessary. He was not a killer mouse. He was actually pretty cute, although the customer understandably did not want to share her shower with him.
Then she gave me an unusual instruction: get the mouse out, but promise not to kill him.
A Pest Control Company Gets a Pet Mouse
Pest control customers do not often request a live mouse rescue. We aim to please, though, so I captured him and brought him back to the Venus office.
That left us with a new problem. What do you call the only mouse ever rescued and adopted by a pest control company?
We asked the local myBCS community to help. The naming contest produced plenty of creative suggestions, but one was perfect: Clement C. Mouse. Say it aloud and the joke becomes clearer. This mouse had received clemency on a day that normally would have ended very differently for a rodent.
Clement Settles Into Office Life
Clement adjusted to life at Venus remarkably well. He loved sunflower seeds and would dig through other food to find them. A raspberry yogurt treat made a suitable dessert.
He also spent time rolling around the office in an exercise ball. The activity seemed to increase both his size and his production of mouse poop by roughly 600 percent. That number did not come from a controlled study, but everyone in the office considered the evidence convincing.
Clement lived with us for about two months. Because he arrived as a wild mouse, we never knew his age or how much life he had already lived. His time as our office pet was brief, but he managed to become part of Venus history.
A One Mouse Exception
Clement remains our only official pest mouse. Please do not interpret this story as an invitation to call Venus whenever you want a mouse captured and enrolled in the company retirement plan.
Wild mice can contaminate food and surfaces, damage stored materials, and reproduce quickly inside a building. People should not handle them casually. Our house mouse guide explains how mice enter homes and what signs they leave behind.
An active indoor infestation requires the Rodent Control Program, which includes inspection, removal, accessible entry point closure and monitoring. Clement received special treatment because a frightened customer asked for mercy and one little mouse happened to be in the right bathtub at the right time.
He may have been a pest, but for two months he was our pest.