Operation: Mouse Hunt

When we were in Montana, we had what we thought was a vole problem:

Mouse in the house! Totally explains George’s relentless mewing this morning… #rvlife pic.twitter.com/6dUpzJWhqp

— A Roaming Life (@ARoamingLife) August 14, 2016

After I let it loose in the wild, we found evidence later of the little critter’s shenanigans:

Looks like the vole visitor we had last month was having a blast. 2 rolls of TP chewed on. No evidence of present party crashers. #RVLife pic.twitter.com/Y8K1UTQdFK

— A Roaming Life (@ARoamingLife) September 24, 2016

And a bit later, it was obvious we weren’t done yet, much to my dismay:

stupid vole is back. that means I have to take EVERYTHING out from underneath, see if i can find the hideout. not happy about that. at all.

— A Roaming Life (@ARoamingLife) September 29, 2016

But our Ranger friend clued us in on a way to keep the critters out:

steel wool keeps critters out, apparently. who knew? we do now!

— A Roaming Life (@ARoamingLife) September 29, 2016

When we stopped at Home Base in Chandler, guess what? A stow away! Definitely a mouse, not a vole.

Mouse hunt! I saw it scurry across the floor. We almost caught the bugger but he’s a jumpy little critter & escaped and disappeared

— A Roaming Life (@ARoamingLife) October 7, 2016

As I stood drinking my V8 I heard scratching and saw him again only for him to elude us once more

— A Roaming Life (@ARoamingLife) October 7, 2016

We set a trap and caught it (sorry nature lovers, we’re using a traditional Victor mouse trap).
As any mouse hunter knows, where there’s one varmint, there’s more varmints.
As we originally saw the evidence under the bathroom sink, I placed the trap there, as the four legged menace seemed to like hanging out there (an ample supply of soft, chewable bedding materials).
Yesterday the trap was sprung but no mouse. Clever little rodent! Either that or I did a piss poor job of putting the bait on the trap (likely the latter).
Tonight, as I lifted the bed to get to the storage, Courtney discovered a brand new roll of toilet paper (bought less than 5 days ago) freshly shredded.

Ha! We unearthed the secret party place! Courtney also spotted how the mouse was making the rounds. At the far end of the bed, near the wall, is a hole — a hole that leads directly to the underside of the bathroom sink. (side note: Courtney had previously mentioned around the time we first spotted the mouse in Arizona that she’d heard ‘scritching’ but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. We’re guessing that it must’ve been under the bed)
The trap was set — properly…

and (carefully) placed under the bed near the hole:

Now we wait…and will probably be setting more traps afterward to be sure.