We had a mouse in the house. We'd hear it scampering around but never saw it. We'd see the droppings in the morning and hear wierd noises at night but it seemed invisible.
One day Mergatroid the cat got into the house and was stalking something, but I got him out before he could catch anything. I bet Merga was taking aim at his next kill, the mouse, but I stopped him from doing it.
One morning I saw the mouse running from the bedroom we use as an office into the hallway bathroom. You know how cartoon characters say "eeeeekkkkk" when they see a mouse? Well, I "eeeeekkkkked!" and
startled my wife, who hated to hear the news of a mouse in the house.
The next night we went to Home Depot to look for mouse traps. (The trap we bought isn't shown online.) I prefer shopping at Lowes, but HD is a little closer to the house.
We bought two boxes, each containing two traps. They're interesting to look at: Imagine a skinny-looking Eskimo igloo, and this is about what it looks at. As I recall each box cost $7.99.
On one narrow side is an opening. On the other narrow side it a tiny door into which you put food, hoping the mouse will want to eat and then it enters the trap looking for a meal. The directions say use peanut butter, but we had none so I used a bit of cheese.
To activate the trap, you pull an orange lever down, which then moves a flat piiece of plastic flat onto the trap floor. The mouse enters, releasing the lever somehow, and the plastic moves upward, trapping the mouse inside. It is not killed, just trapped. You can hear it scratching the inside of trap.
A handy handle on top allows you to pick u the trap and put it into the garbage, the the live mouse
trapped inside.
I was glad to get rid of the mouse, but I felt guilty that it had to suffer for two days in the garbage can outside before being dumped into the garbage truck. I hope it was crushed when they compacted the garbage and not buried alive in the landfill.
Even thought it was only a mouse, I'm bothered about how it suffered.