Farewell to The "Final" Mouse Sometime early in 1999, Opie brought home a pregnant female mouse (or a compatible pair) who took up quarters in our kitchen walls and began raising a family. As they ventured out, the humane traps awaited They were unusual in that they were brown with white underneath; wild mice are usually a uniform gray. We began catching them more regularly, as the weeks turned into months. We bought more traps and caught more mice. We caught a record six mice in one day, all brown-over-white. We have a compost heap, where all the mice are released. It supplies food, shelter and warmth, and mice can recognize their kin when reunited at a new location. A colony of mouse burrows began appearing. Back in the house, the mouse captures began dwindling in December, and by January the captures had ceased. But there was still food disappearing from the traps on an irregular basis. We eventually concluded that we were down to a single mouse who was clever enough to get the food out of the traps. That the food disappeared every few days rather than daily indicated only one mouse prowling. We put out free food (not in a trap), but it too disappeared only after several days. We figured it was only a matter of time before the trap got him. But one evening we found Opie had cornered a mouse in the living room. We chased it into a box and released it. We then wondered if that was the "final" mouse. But it wasn't. Food continued to disappear. When Opie cornered another mouse a few weeks later, we did not assume it was the FM until the food stopped vanishing. After several weeks we realized that for the first time in over a year, we were mouseless.