Gosh, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Sorry about that.
Anyway, turns out that taking pity on the cute* likkle wood mouses and letting them use our house during the cold spell was not without consequence. After finding mouse droppings on the breakfast table even Karen was convinced that murine check-out time had now arrived. We baited the (humane!) trap with peanut butter, which the little dears love so much that even once the trap door is opened to freedom they’d still rather have just one more little nibble before they go.
Six so far, and counting.
UPDATE: We took about 14 mice away, or possibly two mice seven times each (on average.) Then Karen took two of them a lot further away and now we have no mice at all. The house is quiet and sad again — we miss them. (But not their poo.)
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*oh! But they are SO cute!
We had a similar problem at our old house. During my first attempt, I put the peanut butter on crackers (so that it would be easier to clean up–not (just) because I thought they’d prefer a more balanced meal). Turns out they could remove the peanut-butter crackers without triggering the door on the trap!
hmm, design flaw in trap, I feel. I put the peanut butter inside a metal lid — heavy enough that they couldn’t overturn it while trying to escape. Poor little things.
I had a bedroom on the ground floor. A “mouse” came in the window and was rummaging in my closet; rather than deal with the remains of a cat vs mouse encounter, I bought a sticky trap that was baited with something deadly. A couple of days later I found not a mouse but a wood rat (so big it could hardly push into the trap!), very dead. Varmint and trap went into the garbage, and I bought a screen for my window.
oh my!