So...there was a mongoose in our schoolroom

[Mrs Mungo]

We have a 3 car detached garage in our new house. One of the bays has been turned into a room and that's where we have our schoolroom (mainly in the sense that I store all of our crap there). Hubby walks in to put something in there and there is a mongoose sitting on one of the bookshelves! He chases it around the room and finally it pops through the hole from which it came. Apparently, the owners put a hole in the wall between the room and the garage to run some cables. We've been bad about leaving the garage door open while unpacking, carrying stuff back and forth, storing boxes out there, etc and I guess it got in the garage then came through the hole. Anyway, I just had to share one of our experiences since moving to Hawaii! :)

[umarider]

Aaah! But have you encountered any centipedes yet?!

 

I've been terrified of hitting a mongoose accidentally w/ the car ever since a friend told me that mongeese (sp?) mate for life and if one gets killed, the other will just sit by its mate and wait. If you live on Oahu and ever see a car w/ NJ plates in a ditch you'll know I was trying to avoid a mongoose!

[Mrs. Readsalot]

I remember them well. The centipedes, giant flying cockroaches, Bufa toads, mongoose, and various assorted lizards, and they call it paradise. Actually I loved living in Hawaii and thought it was beautifull. I lived on the windward side of Oahu in Kahaaluu. Their was a beautiful, large lizard that would sun itself on my mailbox everyday. I was always happy to see it on top of the mailbox, because I was terrified of opening the mailbox and having it jump out at me.

Enjoy your adventures in paradise.

Oh and when you go to climb Diamond Head take a flashlight.

[Kelli in TN]

Mrs. Mungo,

I wish I had not squandered my allotment of rep on a different post of yours, because the title alone of this post deserves rep.:D I wish I could give you the rep I gave you yesterday and still give you rep today for the jolt that title brings when one is scanning the boards!!!

[Doran]

Mrs. Mungo,

I wish I had not squandered my allotment of rep on a different post of yours, because the title alone of this post deserves rep.:D I wish I could give you the rep I gave you yesterday and still give you rep today for the jolt that title brings when one is scanning the boards!!!

 

LOL Mrs. Mungo!! -- maybe that mongoose needs a new book to read!

 

I agree with Kelli. I was very close to replying with some smart aleck remark like...."So, this mongoose walks into a school room..."

 

If you end up with more than one, are they mongeese? ;)

 

 

Doran

[Remudamom]

If I can figure out how???

[DIY-DY]

Hubby walks in to put something in there and there is a mongoose sitting on one of the bookshelves! He chases it around the room and finally it pops through the hole from which it came.

 

I know, that was India. Still, I think I'd try to keep a herd of 'em in the yard! ;)

[Anne in Hawaii]

We had mongooses (I really think it should be mongeese! :D) at our house on the Marine Corps base (Kaneohe). They were harmless and interesting to watch. Since we moved off base, we have centipedes -- the giant awful ones that look like pure evil.

 

On my way to church each Sunday I regularly see chickens, mongooses, and wild boar. I did not have that picture in mind when I moved to Hawaii! :)

[Mrs Mungo]

To answer all of the posts at once-

 

Yes, I've seen a couple of centipedes in the backyard but they weren't as scary as the scorpions we used to get in the house in California ;) And we had the same "palmetto beetle" type roaches in North Carolina (ewww, yuck!).

 

Aw, thanks, Kelli and Remudamom :D

 

Anne-We've seen several mongooses (and I agree with y'all, it should be mongeese) about but I'm glad I wasn't the one who walked in the schoolroom and found the mongoose there. I think I would have walked out and shut the door with a "I expect you to be gone when I return!"

[SandraDumas]

Have your dc read Riki Tiki or seen the CHuck Jones animated version? It's a great story. My kids would try to make friends with it. They love the idea of a mongoose!

[umarider]

I lived on the windward side of Oahu in Kahaaluu. .

 

 

That's where we were living until last summer when the LL put the house on the market! We loved being able to walk our kayaks down to the water and kayak out to the sandbar!

[Lorna in the boonies]

You ladies are bringing back lots of memories! My dad was stationed at Kaneohe when I was in 8th, 9th, and 10th grades, so I was old enough to remember it all very clearly.

 

Never had a mongoose in my house (though I did find a possum in my bedroom in Corpus Christi -- but we're talking the wrong state, here), but I did have a humongous flying roach stuck in my hair at about 2:00 in the morning once. I was woken up by an awful flapping in my chest area -- it was pretty well tangled and it was a long, nasty process before we got it out (so nasty that I woke my parents up so they could assist me!).

 

We started off living in Kaneohe and had lots of centipedes, but once we moved on base we didn't have them anymore.

 

Thanks for the walk down memory lane!;)

[battlemaiden]

I grew up in Hawaii being hammered that the plural of mongoose is in fact mongoose. Simply mongoose. It was often a trivia question my family would ask our visitors. I remember being taught that in school as well.

 

But after reading these posts I googled and I'm surprised to find the accepted plural forms of mongoose are mongooses or lesser used mongeese.

 

I'm having a corrective moment. :o

 

As for having them in the house? Not yet. Although they are harmless I still find them a little creepy- a little more rat like than squirrel like. :rolleyes:

 

I've been on the look for centipedes, but none yet here in Kaneohe. I was just thinking today that I need to brush up on my treatment techniques for centipede and scorpion bites.

 

Ants on the other hand....if we want to talk about the need to sweep, wipe, and scrub after EVERY meal...I have much to say about that. ;)

 

Jo

 

I'll keep my eyes out for the jersey plates in the ditch.

[umarider]

The first night we were in our rental house was really rainy (imagine that... rain on the windward side?:D) Everyone else was in bed and I had just put the dog into the bedroom w/ DH. I was walking from the bathroom to bedroom when a HUGE centipede came under the outside door and went RIGHT INTO THE BEDROOM!!!! I quickly opened the bedroom door, the dog came running out with an expression on his face that said, "I don't know WHAT that was, but I'm outta here!" (and the dog is 50lbs!) I saw the centipede and trapped it under the dog's water bowl. Now... how to kill it?

 

I went through the kitchen looking for a weapon, but couldn't bring myself to use any of MY stuff to kill a centipede. I finally decided to wake DH and get his help. We got a broom & shovel. The idea was that DH would chop the centipede w/ the shovel and I'd sweep it up. Easy, right? Well, everytime DH struck at the centipede, it would lash it's body out of the way and lunge at the shovel. So I held it down w/ the broom and DH managed to chop it in half. BOTH HALVES STARTED CRAWLING TOWARDS US!!!! I was freaking! We kept chopping until we had little bits of barely moving centipede. As we were cleaning up we heard our kids calling to us. Turns out we'd been shrieking and yelling during our battle w/ the bug! I don't think the kids believed us when we told them that nothing was going on and to go back to sleep! We've seen a few centipedes since then, but we are too smart to try chopping them up!