Slimer is mopping the floor, when a mouse runs in screaming. As it turns out, Manx is chasing it, and it runs into a hole in the wall, while he crashes and knocks over a bookshelf. While Manx tries to reach into the hole and grab the mouse, Janine enters, having heard the crash, and thinks that Slimer was the one who made the mess. He tries to explain, but she doesn't see how it could be true, since Manx is now acting lethargic and she doesn't see how a "sleepy kitty" could have done it. She leaves to go shopping and demand Slimer clean up before she returns.
Manx continues trying to pry the mouse out of the hole, but Slimer scares him by being grabbed by him instead of the mouse. Manx runs out of the firehouse, then the mouse thanks him. However, after Slimer cleans up the mess, Manx climbs through the window and makes another one in the living room.
With Slimer out of the way cleaning up the mess, Manx returns to the lobby and spreads glue all over the floor, then puts some Swiss cheese down. The mouse smells the cheese, but gets stuck in the glue when it goes to get it. He returns to get the mouse, but at that moment, Slimer enters, having finished his cleanup. He grabs the mouse and rolls up the glue, taking Manx with it, and he falls out the window.
While Slimer and the mouse watch TV, Manx comes back and paints fake holes on the skirting board. He then chases the mouse, and it falls for one of the fake holes, so he picks it up. However, when he tries to leave with the mouse, it turns out that Slimer tricked Manx back by painting fake doorways.
Manx then tries to vacuum the mouse out of its hole, but Slimer turns the vacuum cleaner off. When he looks into the hose, Slimer turns it back on, which sucks Manx up. Slimer then launches Manx out the window.
Manx then gets a net to try to catch the mouse with, but by then, Janine is coming back in her car. He hides in a nearby van, while Janine congratulates Slimer for cleaning the firehouse well. Then, it turns out that the van is a pound van and the dogs growl at Manx.
This short provides examples of
- Ambiguous Gender: It's never revealed if the mouse is male or female.
- And Your Reward Is Edible: Janine rewards Slimer for cleaning the firehouse with ice cream.
- Angry Dance: Slimer starts dancing around angrily when he's stuck in the van.
- Animal Jingoism: The dogs in the van growl at Manx.
- Dramatic Irony: Janine thinks Slimer made the mess, but we know that it was actually Manx and the mouse.
- Ectoplasm: The mouse gets slime on its paw when Slimer shakes hands with it.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Slimer ends up trapping Manx in the very glue he used to trap the mouse, then tricking him into vacuuming himself up with the vacuum cleaner he tried to get the mouse with.
- Impact Silhouette: The mouse leaves a mouse-shaped hole in Slimer when it runs through him.
- Intentional Mess Making: To get Slimer to leave him alone, Manx climbs through the window and throws things around to make a mess.
- Just Eat Him: Rather than eat the mouse right away after catching it with the fake holes, Manx tries to pick it up and leave with it alive.
- Mouse Hole: The mouse hides in an arch-shaped hole in the wall.
- Narrative Shapeshifting: Slimer turns into Manx and the mouse to explain how they made the mess.
- No Name Given: The name of the mouse is unsaid, if it has one.
- Offscreen Crash:
- We don't see Manx crash into the wall, but we hear the impact and see objects flying.
- When Slimer launches Manx out the window with the vacuum cleaner, he falls offscreen and we hear a crash.
- Partially Civilised Animal: The mouse lives in a hole, but also reads in a hammock.
- Predators Are Mean: Manx is the villain for trying to eat the mouse.
- Rhyming Title: A Mouse in the House.
- Running on All Fours: Manx usually walks upright, but he's seen chasing the mouse on all fours.
- Slapstick: Slimer struggles to carry a TV.
- Speech-Impaired Animal: The mouse is capable of saying, "Thank you", but in a squeaky voice.
- Squashed Flat: Manx is flattened one of the times he bumps into a fake doorway.
- Sticky Situation: Invoked when Manx traps the mouse with glue.
- Stock Animal Diet:
- Manx is seen trying to eat a mouse.
- Exploited when he baits the mouse with cheese.
- Tongue-Out Insult: Manx waggles his tongue at Slimer to rub it in when Janine thinks he's innocent.
- Visible Odor: The smell of the cheese is visualised as yellow steam.
- Your Head A-Splode: After being Squashed Flat, Manx blows himself back up like a balloon, but accidentally gives his head too much air, so it explodes.
