This started several months ago when I opened my round pantry & saw nibbles out of a package of batter mix, with little mouse doodles all around between the boxes & cans. I cleaned that out & put everything in the up above cupboards.

I had some bread out drying & then found he was nibbling there....oops....hadn't thought of that. I cleaned that up & moved the bread......so he found my covered baked goods next to the stove on the cutting board.....he didn't nibble through the container....he just opened it up, got in there & enjoyed the tops of my glazed donuts.

That ended my keeping anything on my counter.....so what did I find then? Little mouse doodles in the trays under my puppy pens that I keep my doggies in the house....sure enough, they eat their food & a few of the pieces drop into the trays under the floor grating. I keep that cleaned up all the time.....but would notice every once in awhile, the dogs would go off in the middle of the night.....warning signal.....mouse running around the kitchen.

I didn't hear much after that & after I had heard him scurring around my oven area....when I started baking a few weeks ago, he decided the hot oven wasn't a good place to be. I hoped there weren't any little babies around either.....but didn't seem to be.

I didn't see any sign of him for quite awhile until I opened up the door of my entryway closet.....there on the floor was the bird seed bag with the ends chewed off & seed all over the floor.

Early on, I had talked to my friend about not wanting to trap the little guy as I couldn't kill him. She had one of those humane traps that you put food in & it closes behind them with the weight....she said it never worked for her, but I could give it a try. Everywhere I found that the mouse was, I would put the trap, but was always just behind him & never caught him.

I picked up the bird seed bag & put in on top of the toilet seat in the down stairs bathroom along with a bag of dog food. I went a long time without any sign of the mouse & left the trap in the entryway closet.

Well, the other day, I walked into the bathroom & there was an end chewed off the bag of birdseed right where I had taped it up. I moved everything around so he couldn't jump up onto the toilet seat, taped it back up & set the harmless trap on the floor of the bathroom ready for him......a few days went by & nothing. I walked into the bathroom to get some dog food for my doggies last night & looked at the trap....it was closed. I thought maybe Destiny had bumped it of something when she ran in there......so I picked up the trap slowly. I rattled it to see if the food was still in there & it felt a bit heaver than the food did & nothing rattled. I held it in my hands & felt a little movement......ah.....maybe he really was in there. I decided not to take any chances as I didn't want to open it & have a mouse in the box pop out at me, so I went & got a bright flash light (as it was 2am at the time). I walked with the trap across the street to the gate of the cattle farm & opened the trap. I shook it a bit & a couple of pieces of dog food came out (that I had previously put in), but no mouse????? The trap still felt a little heavy, so I held it upside down & shook it harder......out plopped mister mouse onto the driveway. He looked at me, I looked at him.....told him never to come back to my house again or I would take him so far away he would never see Harrodsburg again......he ran off into the bushes & I went back into the house with the trap......set up with a few more pieces of dogfood, not believing that he will stay away for long, but hoping that he won't show up ever again.

I have a scraggly looking ground hog that has made his home in my wood pile....he really looks ratty....don't know if he is ill or not, but I have never seen any look that scraggly before.....his fur is sparce & his tail is thin......hoping he doesn't have rabies of anything like that. One never knows what they will come across with here in the country, but at least there is one less mouse in my house & I was able to get rid of him without killing him!!!!!

You can't take that city part of not wanting to kill even a mouse out of me no matter where I move to!!!!!

Debbie