(singing) "Three dead mice...three dead mice..."

THERE'S A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE!!! THERE'S A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE!!!

Okay, so we've had this mouse problem for the past several months. One time we caught 7 mice in a 2 week period. I was so disgusted with all the "droppings" all over the floor/couch/pantry. Then we had a lul. No mice for about 3 months. Well, they're back. The trap you see in the picture above is actually stuck to the mouse's tail. Doug saw him the night before while he was watching TV till the wee hours of the morning. So, he set a bunch of traps with peanut butter on them. The next morning, there were no mice in any of the traps. Dang! At about 10am, I was sitting on the couch nursing Holly and I saw this mouse come from behind the couch and hobble to the fireplace with the trap stuck to his tail. He jumped into the fireplace and got stuck and started squeeking. Just as he ran across the room, the phone rang. It was my friend Tiffany who loves all animals and doesn't like to see them hurt or killed. So, she came to the rescue...mine and the mouse's.
Tiffany put on gloves and removed the entire grate from the fireplace. You can see the head of the "sweet" little pest! Tiffany brought the mouse to the backyard of the vacant house next door and lifted the trap off the mouse's tail and let it go. She said his tail was a little cut up but he was alive and that's all that mattered. Well, when I told Doug she had let it go next door, he said, "Oh great. He'll be back!" Sure enough, he was back that night. Doug knew it was the same mouse b/c his tail was all cut and bruised from being caught in the trap earlier. This time, Doug chased him into a glue trap and sat on the porch petting his head with gloves on (as the mouse sat stuck in the glue trap) telling him he had a chance to be free but came into our territory again so he was gonna have to go. Doug through the mouse/trap in the trashcan and that was that. I had to call Tiffany and tell her that the mouse came back. She said she had to laugh when she got my message. (Just don't tell her that when I took the garbage out the next morning, he was still alive and suffering...still stuck to the trap.)
As if that weren't fun enough, his friend had to follow his trail 2 days later. So, apparently mice have gotten a lot smarter over the years because we found that the mice would just stand on the side of the traps and lick the peanut butter off of them. To give you an example of their master minds, Doug sat, again, watching TV till the midnight hours and watched as the mouse hung from the fireplace with his back legs/feet, braced himself on the wood part of the trap and sat licking the peanut butter off one of the 6 traps Doug had set. Doug threw a waded up paper towel at the traps hoping to snap one on the little booger. The traps snapped but no catch. But, it was only a matter of time...and a little peanut butter adjustment. Doug placed the peanut butter at the far back of the yellow "cheese" piece and placed the traps, every so gently set, along the fireplace so the mouse had no hope.
The next morning, Savannah called my attention to the ill-fated mouse who had finally been out smarted! (It was pretty gross, half of his tail was missing. Hmmmm.) Let's hope they've learned their lesson. Now to get the carpets/couches cleaned!