Smart mice

We have a deer mouse infestation in our house.


We discovered this when our cat showed up in our bedroom one night with a mouse at 12:30 AM. He dropped it on the floor and played with it, batting it around and pouncing on it until KC finally grabbed the mouse in a plastic bag. The next night, same thing, except the cat showed up at 4:00 AM pleased as punch with his captured mouse. He played with the thing for 15 minutes (including a time when it ran behind a chest of drawers and he flushed it out) until finally the mouse hid under a pillow on the floor that Jello uses as a playground with his plastic toys. Jello couldn't get the injured mouse out of the pillow case, but I could.


Our next door neighbours laughed. They said the previous owners always had mouse problems, but they have never had any.


So we went to the hardware store and bought your basic mouse traps. I've used traps before and always found them effective. We bought 4, baited them with peanut butter, put them in the basement, and in the morning...


All the bait was gone. No mice captured.


So we tried again. Same result: bait gone. No trap sprung.


We went to the store and bought a different kind of snap trap. Now with 6 traps out... bait gone. No trap sprung.


We jammed nuts into the triggers. No luck. Nuts gone. No trap sprung.


In fact, for one of the conventional mouse traps, the mice had pushed it under a board so that it couldn't snap. The bait was gone, the trap was ready to spring - but the mice had prevented it. Smart mice, these.


We got glue traps. These are supposed to be pre-baited. We placed them beside the regular traps. In the morning, bait gone. No mouse in any trap. No evidence anyone came near the glue. Smart mice.


Last night, we decided to go the chemical route, putting out poison impregnated seed bait. It looks like some was taken.


The current score: mouse traps 0, mice 26 free meals. From this point onward, their free meals will be a lot more costly.