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Why is the mouse not leaving my house when it can smell the cats & their used cat litter. For reasons of preventing the cats from getting outside, we only keep the cats on the 2nd floor of the house.

In the 3 days since mouse emerged from the walls via the kitchen sink cabinet, it has been getting on the kitchen counters & tonight for the 1st time ran around the living room floor. It sat & stared at my hubby for a couple minutes, totally not scared of ppl. We set up 2 wooden snap traps in the kitchen bated with peanut butter 3 days ago. 1 trap is along a wall the rodent is running along & the other on the kitchen counter top parallel to the wall.

What can I further do to kill this mouse? Would putting used kitty litter in some open containers around the living room move the mouse back into the kitchen where it might go to the traps or would this just drive the mouse back into the walls again? It has possibly done some electrical damage in the walls chewing on wires b/c 1 day we smelled smoke in the house & couldn't find where it was coming from.

HELP, we're getting frustrated & want to get rid of this intruder before it does more damage. Pls mention if U work in pest control.

UR plumbing pipes & get into UR house via a kitchen sink/a basement floor drain?

I just recently got a mouse in my house & never had mice in all the yrs we've lived here. In Feb/12 we heard scratching/rustling noises in our 2nd floor walls & then nothing til June 12/12 when we saw a mouse on the kitchen counter (hoping not a baby rat). It left behind 8-10 fresh droppings (size of grains of rice) around our toaster & microwave, which was the 1st time we saw any droppings anywhere in the house.

We want to seal off any possible entry points around the house. I'm wondering if the mouse got in somehow via the roof, which is only 2 yrs old & seems to have all holes well sealed off (the semi detached neighbor's house attached to ours is in need of a roof replacement, so maybe mousie could've gotten in through the attic space from their side of the house). It's just the 1st mouse we heard was in a 2nd floor wall. We thought that mouse left the house when the weather got warm b/c we never heard any activity until yesterday, but maybe it could've made it's way down the outside of plumbing pipes from the bathroom down to the kitchen & gotten out from under the cup board somehow.

We don't have a garbage disposal, so I don't think we shouldn't be attracting critters so much through the sink, but is that a possibility of them coming up drains from sanitary sewers (in our house it would have to climb up inside all the pipes through the full sized basement to get the the 1st floor kitchen). I do often dump mop water with cleaner down the kitchen sink & other sinks, plus wash them out with vim, so I'd think that would wash away any food bits in the drains that might attract rodents.

A week ago we smelled smoke & couldn't find where it as coming from &all our windows were closed. We're worried the mouse may have nibbled through part of a wire in a wall. We've not smelled smoke since, but are concerned the unwanted visitor could cause a house fire.

What do U all think & if any exterminators answer my question please note in UR response that U R in that line of business, thx.

I found a portion of a rat carcass when doing a Spring leaf clean up. Unless I unknowingly shoveled up the rest of it in another shovel load of leaves, all that was left of it was it's disgusting fat rat tail & dried skin-w-brown fur from it's butt & hind leg area, amongst the rotting leaves. Looks like it would likely have been about a 5 inches long in the body judging by what was left of it (not counting tail length).

How long would it of taken to have gotten to that stage of decay (no bones, most the skin & fur gone)?

Would it likely have died in the fall & been in the leaves & buried under snow all winter or would it have died more recently? I'd the area completely cleaned up in Sept 2011, so I know it was not left there from a previous yr. From Dec/11-Apr 15/12 the next door house had some uncleanly tenants living there that according to the home owner (after renters were evicted) had left piles of uneaten food scraps piled on the floor of the doorless open shed in the back yard. So, the rat may have been attracted to the property next door during that time & gotten under the fence into my yard where it died.

If you are answering my questions on this and are an exterminator/work in the rodent control field please mention that in your answer. Thx

I normally wouldn't ask such a weird thing, but I've got a yucky poop mess to clean up in my house. How long does it take for feces "to dry out & turn into harmless dust" inside a house, on surfaces like a washable floor/cement floor, a wall, plastic, rubber maid containers, card board boxes, clothing, basically quite a variety of types of surfaces... It's been an impossible clean up, so some traces of feces/sewage might remain on some things. I just wonder how long it takes to become harmless dust.

How quickly will major damage occur? I've a mouse that sounds to be trapped between a bedroom wall in my upstairs of my house. It doesn't have access to food or water in there, so I don't know if it'll vacate on it's own b/c of that. I also have 2 cats that live in the upstairs of my house, so the mouse might smell them or their litter boxes. I don't know if one of these things will be a deterrent for the mouse to keep living in my house or if it will die in the wall b/c it could be trapped in there or if since it would be hard to capture when it's living in the wall if I should get a exterminator to come get rid of it.