The brothers cannot bring themselves to kill the mouse and mail him in a box addressed to Fidel Castro. Lars throws an orange at Ernie, which misses Ernie but hits the mouse, who is stunned but still alive.

Angry at each other for the deceptions, the brothers get into a heated argument. As the brothers recover from the blast, Zeppco calls and leaves a message, saying that they have taken back their proposal since Lars declined their offer and Ernie never showed up for the meeting. Ernie chases the mouse with a shotgun and accidentally shoots a bug bomb Caesar had dropped, blowing a massive hole in the floor and sending him and Lars tumbling. Realizing the mouse's intelligence, the brothers become more desperate to kill him. The brothers return to the mansion only to witness a now-insane Caesar being taken away by paramedics.

Ernie then misses his meeting with Zeppco's representatives when he attempts to impress some women and is hit by a bus. Lars goes to the factory to manufacture enough string to pay off the mortgage and is met by April, who has learned of the mansion's value and takes Lars back, giving him the funds they need. Ernie finds Zeppco's business card and arranges a meeting to secretly accept their buyout offer. The brothers resort to extreme measures to remove the mouse, including buying a monstrous Maine Coon cat named 'Catzilla' and hiring an eccentric exterminator named Caesar the mouse drops Catzilla to his death in a dumbwaiter, and traumatizes Caesar by dragging him through the mansion using his truck's winch line.Įrnie had borrowed against the mansion's mortgage to help pay for the renovations, and as the bank informs them that they will be evicted in two days unless they pay, they know that with their limited funds the brothers cannot pay their workers, causing them to go on strike. Conventional methods fail when the mouse demonstrates itself to be exceptionally intelligent. Ernie, fearing a repeat of the cockroach incident, convinces Lars they must also get rid of the mouse. The brothers decide to renovate and auction the mansion to recover their lives. The blueprints reveal that the mansion was the final design of a famous architect, Charles Lyle LaRue, and it would be worth a fortune if restored. The brothers cannot sleep due to noises caused by a mouse, and while investigating find blueprints of the property.

With nowhere else to go, the brothers spend the night in the mansion. Lars's wife April is furious and kicks him out. Meanwhile, a cord company called Zeppco International offers Lars a buyout for the string factory, but doesn't notice that he remembers he promised his father to never sell it, and refuses. Shortly after the mayor dies, Ernie's restaurant, Chez Ernie, is condemned and scheduled for demolition, costing Ernie his career and home in the process. At Ernie's restaurant, a cockroach crawls out of the box of cigars and into a dish prepared for the mayor, causing him to have a heart attack when he accidentally bites into it and is taken away in an ambulance. When the once-wealthy string magnate Rudolf Smuntz dies, he leaves his factory and an abandoned Victorian mansion to his two sons: the dutiful and optimistic Lars, and venal cynic Ernie, who has ignored the family business to become a chef he walks out of the reading of their father's will, taking a box of cigars.

Mouse house cheese