No mouse in this house

About a month ago we saw something scurry across the corner of the kitchen floor. I inspected the areas accessible from where I saw it, and found no obvious holes. The pantry held no indication of compromise. I determined it was only able to make it behind the refrigerator, behind the dish washing machine, and under the sink. Obviously, there was no food there. Later I set up some traps baited with some peanut butter, and set them in some out of the way places I knew the mouse had access to.

Weeks pass, and every once in a while, I glance at the traps, and see them notably unsprung. We also noted that we hadn't seen the little bugger, and assumed it moved on to some place that actually had food. I gathered the traps so I could play with them, and found the first one devoid of bait. Like, completely devoid. Clean enough that I doubted whether or not I had even baited the trap. Unsure what to think, I checked the other trap, and found it just as clean. I remember specifically baiting the traps. The mouse just had two snacks at my expense...
Motherfucker..

I remembered something Les Stroud mentioned about baiting traps; if you want the animal to actuate the trap, you need to really rub the bait into the triggering device. That way the animal must really work the trigger to get the bait, and actuate the trap. The mouse traps I had had a fake plastic cheese triggering place that had holes in it. I thought the holes were for aesthetics, but either way, decided to make use of them. I spread the peanut butter into the holes, and into the underside of the "cheese" triggering plate.

I then went about designing a better mouse trap. I found the triggering system to be far too insensitive, so I made a rectangular tube that lead to a piece of cardboard that rested on the insensitive triggering place on the mouse trap. I then tied some paracord fiber to the snapping arm, and ran it around a overhead hanger wire bar, and then to a flap door. The mouse would enter the trap through the door, approach the bait placed at the end of the cardboard lever, trigger the trap, snapping the trap shut, and pulling the door to the trap closed. I have a picture I'll post later. Half way through the construction I exclaimed to no one in particular, "Yay! I'm making this more complicated than it has to be!" My girlfriend commented, "Yeah. That sounds like you." While this trap was quite humane, that just happened to be where the design led me. I'd be lying if I said the idea of more... tortuous dispatch mechanisms hadn't occurred to me. The phrase, "tiny mouse iron maiden" may or may not have been uttered.

I made another trap copying a triangle one-way passage trap I saw online, in case the complicated one didn't work.

A few days later the mouse was caught. In the same mouse trap with the peanut butter smeared on the top and bottom of the triggering plate "cheese." Seems it is rather hard to build a better mouse trap. I took out my knife, and gave the trap a deserved notch.

The peanut butter on the top of the triggering plate was all removed. Only the peanut butter on the bottom remained. I imagine he deftly removed the readily available bait, then met his end trying for the more difficult stuff on the bottom.

I regarded the former animal and its broken back with a pang of remorse.

A pang easily quelled when I remembered how it emptied both traps out easily, and I continued to check them for weeks.

I gave him a proper burial box (maple and brown sugar oatmeal, if it matters) and disposed of him.

Sorry bud. Them's the breaks.

Good riddance. Stay out of my home.