One problem with mice traps is that once the trap has sprung, if you aren't right there to clean it out, it is no longer effective for other mice in the area. My father had a cabin in the woods that would be vacant for long periods of time. A friend of his suggested this home-made trap that keeps on working. Fill a 5 gallon pail with several inches of water. Take an empty soda or beer can and poke a hole in the bottom. String a wire through the can and suspend it over the water by tying it to the handles of the pail. Smear peanut butter on the can and rest a piece of wood against the side of the pail so the mice can climb to the rim. They will jump onto the can to eat the PB, and spin the can and drop into the water. You may end up with a mess in the pail, but it will keep working until you get a chance to empty it.

I grew up on a dairy farm in N.E.Ohio. We had a huge old farmhouse with 7BR and a #2 galvanized tub and chamber pots for a bathroom, + the little house out back...LOL The basement had a dirt floor and stone walls. There was two 4'x4'x25' bins, one along the east wall and the second running parallel with a 3' walkway where we stored 10tons of potatoes + pumpkins, squash, and apples. A row of 18 fifty gallon barrels filled with apple cider, which provided sweet cider for about 4 to 6 weeks, then hard cider for the men all winter & spring and apple vinegar for the canning season the next year. The south wall had shelves where we stored 2000 mason canning jars filled with every fruit and veggie imaginable + about 10 varieties of pickles and home canned pork sausage balls. Huge smoked hams (35-40lbs) hung on hooks from the ceiling along with sides of bacon and smoked sausages. Every morning when we finished milking the cows we would bring a 5gallon pail of fresh whole milk to the house (6-8% butterfat). AT the barn we had a small masonary building called the Milk house. In the milk house there was a pit 4' wide, 3'deep and 14' long with a pipe coming in from the spring on one end and a drain pipe on the opposite end. We stored up to 18 milk cans of milk in that pit overnite, then after the milking in the morning we hauled all the milk cans to a local dairy. We didn't have need of a butter churn because the dairy gave us 4lbs of butter every day free. (I used to love riding the truck to the dairy because we could sneak in the freezers and grab an ice cream bar..LOL) Twenty loaves of bread were baked every Thursday along with a couple pies and yeast dinner rolls. Until I was 13 years old we didn't even have a refrigerator and didn't see any need of getting one. Now the doomsday profits would tell you that all that fresh milk, smoked meats and non-refrigerated food will kill you, but I am 60yrs old and never even saw a doctor from the time i discharged out of the Air Force in 1972 until two months ago. My Grandfather was 68 when he passed away, worked the farm with horses every day, and he had never been to a doctor in his life. go figure!

Call Seagul's toll-free technical help line. They're really helpful and are going to know WAY more than anyone here.

Thanks, everyone, for the advice. I'm scared to death of mice and have been putting this off the last few days, lest I see one while cleaning up his gross little mess, but mice generally come out at night, right? I did indeed see a hole or two in the way back - they look too cleanly cut to be mouse holes, but I bet that's how the little buggars got in. I've heard spray foam works well to block openings up, and I think I might call up the landlord to ask permission to hammer some metal over them. Gosh I don't want to do this, haha.