On The Streets of St. Louis

I found a marvelous St. Louis blog named STL Streets. I like all his entries, so I've added him to my side bar.
One of his posts was about catching a mouse, and it reminded me of the mouse incident in Boston. So here's the story:

When I went to Massacheussetts to give birth to W, I stayed with an adopting family. They had two children; a newborn, and a girl about the same age as my son. I had specifically requested a family without toddlers. I didn't want a daily reminder of what I might be missing out on at home. C'est la vie. You get what you get, and I hope the experience was as good for the family as it was for me. Anyway, one night I'm awoken from a typical pregnancy dream by Anonymous Mom screaming like crazy.
She had spotted a mouse.
Anonymous Dad didn't know what to do; but his wife was in distress, and he was a Manly man, so first thing in the morning he bought a bunch of mouse traps. He baited them with the best cheese in the house, a nice hard cheddar. He checked the traps several times a day, and invariably, the cheddar would still be sitting there.
Anonymous Mom and Dad were baffled. They had never encountered mice before, and had no idea how to really catch one. They thought the glue traps were too freaky, and were afraid a humane trap would mean having to handle a filthy rodent; so they stuck with the spring-loaded trap of doom. They tried switching baits a few times. Each time they thought up a new treat to tempt their finicky mouse, I said, "Try peanut butter."

Eventually, after it was clear that nothing was working, Anonymous Dad baited one trap with peanut butter. He probably did it just to shut me up.
That night, a little after 1:00, I heard the trap spring. *clack*
It echoed through the house. It woke everyone but the baby. I stayed in my room and pretended to be asleep while I eaves dropped on the ensueing conversation:
AM: I heard a trap! Do you think we caught it? Ew ew ew!
AD: Probably not, but I'll check anyway. You stay here. This might be gross.
*footsteps*
AD: Oh! My! God! Oh, disgusting! *laughter*
AM: What? Did you catch it? What's funny?
Anonymous Child: Did you catch the mouse, Daddy? Can I see?
AD: (to child) No honey, you go back to sleep. (to wife) We caught it, alright. The trap broke it's back... and it's still eating the peanut butter!
AM: I feel sick. No! Don't show it to me! No! I'm not looking, just get rid of it!
AD: (sigh)I love you, you know.
Anonymous Dad got rid of the mouse, and re-baited the trap in case there were more. About 40 minutes later, the trap sprang shut again.
AD: Ew! It got it's face! There's blood everywhere!
AM: Just throw the whole trap away!
AD: Yeah. I'm going to bait 'em all with peanut butter, ok?
AM: Good idea.

I got no sleep that night, as you can imagine. Nor the next night. It took 5 days to catch the whole infestation. It was an amusing time.

So. If you have mice, bait your traps with peanut butter. It works!
Also try putting your people and pet food in sealed containers.