Mice and rats have not lived on earth for much longer the we have without knowing how to survive in some very hostile conditions. Traps are quite passive and require the animal to initiate contact. If the baited traps are not attracting the animal then it is finding food in easier to obtain places, or maybe does not like the selection offered. Mice and rats are omnivores and eat anything, so that you are finding droppings tells you that animal is finding ample food, somewhere. Time and patience are needed.

I figure I could add something years later since other people added comments a year later. I moved into a rental house in Boulder, CO that had very well done perennial beds around the time this original post was written. It's been neglected for 7 or 8 years or so, especially the last 3 years. I can tell from Google maps the last year the lambs really took out for the rest of the beds and even the yard. I've been digging, pulling and now have covered an entire bed with clear plastic to kill the seeds before I'll consider planting there. The roots have formed an impenetrable mass and are sometimes thicker than my thumb. They have smaller roots finding them all together. I think if I were building a prairie Sod house I would be thrilled to find these. I'm constantly facing masses of sprouts and churning them over with hopes of killing most of them. We live in a Bee Safe neighborhood, and I don't think Round Up would have helped much anyway. I put an ad on craigslist and I've had many people haul garbage bags of plants away but eventually I got tired of answering the text-I think I had probably 50 people take A wavering amounts of these plants. I've never had them spread before but I stay on top of them, possibly since I use them in flower arrangements or pull them out as soon as they stray out of their designated area. I've discovered I now despise them and I don't think I'll ever let them grow again. I see them downwind from our yard and I'm tempted to go pull them now to spare them future agony- especially since it's likely the seeds came from here in the first place.

Thank you everyone for all of the usefull information and links. I bought some cheap Maxell House Coffee last night and brewed a bunch of it. I placed all fo the grounds on the soil of all of my palms (in the effected room)I'll keep minitoring because it seems to be spreading to other plants. I will take more agresive steps if it doesn't stop.

Doesn't matter which cycle. Rinse/Hold is fine ... just add a tablespoon or two directly to the tub, let the machine swish it around and drain. Fabric softener kills suds in washing machines so it'd surely do the same in a dishwasher ... very little should be needed, less than a tablespoon. Dishwasher detergent ideally should not generate any suds. Suds interfere with rotation of the spray arm, dragging it down from proper speed ... and can also cause a vapor lock on the pump, starving it for water, reducing spray pressure and resulting in bad washing/rinsing performance. Rinse aid is a sort of detergent or soap and can cause sudsing in the final rinse if the dosage is too high for the water conditions (hardness). Dispensers inject just milliliters of rinse aid. Adjustable rinse aid dispensers typically release from 1 ML at the lowest setting to maybe 5 ML at the highest. 1 teaspoon is 4.9 ML. No "regular" liquid hand-dishwashing detergent in the household? Seems a little odd, LOL. Sudsing can be caused by residue left on dishware that has been sloshed in soapy water in the sink and then loaded into the machine.