leverhart, thank you for your advice.

Yes, we were thinking what we should do about the inspector.

After he mentioned "some" mice droppings I told him that the last thing I want was any uninvited guests and asked again and again whether we should be alarmed and he said no.

The mice issue wasn't the only issue found afterwards. The washer was found not to spin/drain... He probably didn't watch it through the cycle - it has the appearance of working OK till it reaches its time to drain. And also, we now have a hole on the roof to the back porch - in less than 2 months after closing. The rest of the house's roof seems to have about 10 more years to go but the seller apparently had decided to save some money by skipping on the small back porch roof. The inspector missed that, too...

I had called exterminator regarding the poop around dishwasher and they had advised us calling when the renovation is done to see if there are more activities. I am not sure if I want to wait till more move into our house... :(

I can't see waiting until the renovation is done to start treating the mouse problem now. Putting down bait stations or traps won't interfere with the work.

We have a vacation house in the mountains and every fall when the weather gets cold we get a few mice in the house. Our exterminator checks and refills the bait stations in September, puts down sticky traps and has several exterior bait stations under the decks, and we put down regular old mouse traps too. This has kept our annual mouse harvest at anywhere from 3 to 5 which is fine with me.

You just bought a home, so you better start getting handy or it will nickel and dime you to death. Hooking up a gas range is an easy easy thing to do. You don't need a $80 trip from a plumber or appliance repair person to do this. Look on YouTube if you need some hints on the how-to. Hook it up and light it off. It may take a minute or two to purge the air from the flexible supply line. If none of the burners will light off after a good while waiting for the air to be forced out, then you may have electrical problems caused by the mice. If the top burners will light, try the oven. That's where the real smell will come if it's been contaminated too badly. If it's just a little bit of poop in the insulation, it will stop smelling after an hour or so and it will be dried out and cooked into more or less safe situation for you to use the oven. What's usually the case though is that the urine in the insulation is the problem and it will smell every time you use it. I'd personally light it off, and if it smelled like more than the usual smell of a stored gas range lighting off (a little bit burnt smelly, but not horrible) then I'd buy a new one.

And, put on some coveralls and crawl under the house to see if you can find any openings where the mice are getting in. Grab your caulk gun and go around the foundation on the exterior and look at the window and door trim while you are doing the inspection. (If you have a brick home, don't mistake it's weep holes for damaged mortar.) Caulk not only weather tights the home and helps with your utility bills, it pest proofs it too. Mice can get into an opening as big as a standard #2 pencil or larger. If you come upon any obviously chewed areas or created holes, put your mouse bait there. You will need something other than caulk to close those holes up, but it will depend on what the holes are in for what material you will want.

And, your home inspector should have given you a report with many photographs illustrating his points. His "small amount" of poop should be right there in a colored 3"x5" shot as "small" is a term of judgement. His "small" might be your "large", especially if he's inspected heavily vermin infested homes. Typically though, the contract that you sign with the inspector will only refund you the cost of the inspection if you find out that you have more issues than he documented. You would not have any financial recourse beyond his fee alone. Yes, it would be worth it to document your issues to take it up with him in order to recoup the fee, but don't expect anything beyond that will happen.

Thank you for your suggestion, live wire oak.

Handy.. that's definitely not us but we will have to become handy, I guess. I will try to get the machine hooked up (yes, will look up youtube) and see if there is any smell/ignition issues either for the oven or the stove. Have called the inspector and had planned to send him all these pictures. I will go ahead and report him in BBBor leave an online review, too so other people will not suffer like us...

Wow! Years ago, I bought a used but pristine-appearing stove. I was saving for a dream range for the new home. The stove was in a garage but was spotless but when I turned on the oven, there was the worst stench imaginable! Apparently, a mouse had crawled into the innards of this range and died. Needless to say, the dream range was bought right then. So, be aware that there could be some dead rodent(s) in the wall of that range!