Mice, More Mice, Lots of Mice, No Mice

The final catch was up around 27 mice. I only killed 3 of them.

At the last post I was optimistic that I would be able to get all the mice that night. I had bought some nifty "live mice" traps and was sure I had what it took to eradicate the little guys. The live mice traps worked for crap, and I made some critical miscalculations. The first miscalculation was assuming that VW would make their camper vans mouse proof. Seems like a logical thing, eh? Turns out there are two vents in the back of the car under the bumper that mice can just run right in. VW claims that they are there to create a flow of air through the van, but I just want to say that the van probably has isn't so airtight that they need to put these in. After catching 8 mice, followed by 7 the next night, I figured out the vents and plugged them with a modified beer can (and mormons say that beer isn't good for anything). O.k. That should take care of it. Nope. I still caught 5 more that night. Unfortunately, I used these glue traps which are about the saddest thing you have ever seen. The mice run onto them get completely stuck in the glue and then struggle about getting even more stuck. It broke my heart to see the little guys with their faces and feet plastered to the glue and twitching about. The directions said you can free the mice if you pour oil on the glue and pry them loose. This I did (at 4 in the morning) and it wasn't a lot of fun. I hooked up with a guy, Joe, to climb one day and told him of my saga. He said that the mice were taking advantage of me and probably just running right back into the van (using some other way to get in besides the vents). He suggested keeping them in a container of sorts over night and then releasing them somewhere way far away. Duh! Why didn't I think of that. I caught 4 more that night and took them a few miles from the campground for humane release.
At this point, my miceatarian tendencies were starting to wane and I went and bought some traditional mousetraps. That night I set 4, went over to my neighbors site for dinner and when I came back, I found 2 dead buggers in the traps. I set them all again, went to bed and found one more dead guy in the morning. And guess what, last night I caught no mice! None. It was silent in the car. No more of the haunting scratching sound coming from all angles of the van. No more chewing sounds. No more false sounds of the "live traps" shutting closed. Nothing. So... does this mean the mice are gone? Does this mean that killing a few spread the word that I mean business and that they should stay away? Have I really sealed the van? Are my nights now going to be boring without mice to keep me entertained? Who knows, but I feel like I have learned a lot about mice, trapping mice, and killing mice in the last week.

Marshall