A mouse once chose our house for its new home. It used my mother's bathroom as it's front door, and my mother spotted it in her bedroom. ("It was THIS BIG!" and held her bloodless hands far enough apart to be a small dog.) When the trap finally sprung, she ran and got me to check on it. I found the most adorable little field mouse: dead, with a bar across its chest. I did feel kind of bad; it looked like it should have been a pet, not a pest.

I heard a skittering in the walls the other day, so maybe we have another one.

I believe CA also passed some law that requires us to turn out animals without killing them. It probably doesn't apply to mice since I still see the death traps around, but larger animals can't be destroyed when caught. To my understanding, this is causing problems in Northern California, where wild animals are more of a nuisance.