A Mouse in the House - Albany,CA

If this is a room you don't use much put some moth balls in the room and the mouse will go away. Or get some peppermint leaves from the grocery store and sprinkle them around the walls and again the mouse will leave.

Mice do not like moth balls or peppermint.

You are fine. If field mice were deadly, we'd all be dead.

What's a house without a mouse. Set some traps. They basically are harmless.

Sounds like you are doing everything right. Even if you kept your home immaculately, you could still have mice or rats. Granted you might have noticed him sooner. :P

Human beings and mice have co-existed for millenia. Of course some experts think that's how black plague was spread. But that was before modern sanitation, etc.

It's such a gross feeling - but I wouldn't get obsessively worried other than closing up the entry point and trapping any lingerers-on.

ETA: We had a baby rat in a trash can in my son's room. Our builder, who is also a good friend, literally picked the thing up and held him like a hamster. Extremely gross. But still. Builder is alive and well today!

we get an annual pet mouse every year when it gets cold outside. They end up in the kitchen under the sink because theres a hole that goes all the way to the bathtub. I saw 2 run quickly in the kitchen. To be sure for the 2nd mouse, I set out peanut butter on a plastic spoon. The whole spoon was gone the next day. They are alive 2 weeks and then eat the poison pellets and then die. I found this years mouse dead downstairs between the pipe and a wooden board. it had been stinking in the basement for a week and I couldn't figure out the stink. I named him Ralph and had my husband come get him out. He looked like a huge cottonball with feet.
You could go around and plug up any holes around the outside of the house where they could be getting in. You don't need to worry about diseases.

We get mice because they are eeu uh cold outside. There's a bit of some woods across the street. We must look like the safe house. Our cat is gone and the dog is way too friendly. Alas, my dear husband and son so far have assassinated them in some way or another.
We had more, and a cat (gone now) and a rat who must have lived quite happily for a couple of months with the dog and cat who started out barking and mewing at night for awhile then stopped. A couple of months later we were moving some things and there he was running.Smiling at me. I am convinced he was the size of a rabbit. Again, husband saved us but we hid a trap in a beer carton. It appears that he too was living in the laundry room. And then again the other day I saw a quick movement in our laundry room and of course no one else has. ick. So...but back to the rat I am happy to say a young man in our neighborhood claimed they got rid of a domestic rat and of course it must have been our house guest. Right? Feels better to myself if I convince myself that it started as a pet.
Oh I was supposed to help. Well, the good news is we are all alive and pretty healthy. Bad news for all is I really don't like to do laundry much anymore.

We live in a older home and about a year ago had a rat a full blown fat rat living yes LIVING in our garage. We tried traps but that sneaky rat got the food off and didnt snap the trap and those that were snapped he was no wear around it. Growing up we would get them any time there was major construction going on in the surrounding area. The recent rat came from the feild a few blocks away with a dentist office being built :/

Gross factor : - watching billy the exterminater (on A&E ) i believe he said that once a rat urinates or mouse its tail draggs through it letting other rats know this is the trail they can follow and be safe. so your going to want to mop all the floor area.

I would allow one or two of your cats to hang out in the laundary room (with its own cat box if your not using posion yet)

Mice carry disease when there is disease to carry. If you're not having serious health issues in your community it's unlikely that you'll catch anything from these mice. Mice/rats carry disease by biting someone who is infected and becoming ill themselves. If that rat was healthy you have nothing to fear.

I live a short distance from a river. When my brother came to live with me bringing his pet birds we got rats. They chewed thru plastic bins to get to the bird food and some of my food also stored in plastic bins.

At the same time the city was being over run with rats. I don't know what the city did but what ever it was it no doubt helped. What we did was to set out traps and rat poisoning in hard to reach places in the basement. Sounds like yours are in the basement too. I suggest that if you look you can find places to set this stuff up that the cats can't get to. If not you can buy traps that are in boxes. Within a month the rats were all gone. I still find a dried up body and pellets from time to time, several years later, but smell has not been a problem.

There's no such thing as just one mouse.
If there's one, there's probably a few more hanging around.
Secure your pantry.
Make sure any food that's not in a jar or can is kept in a plastic storage bin with a lid on it.
Pet food bags should be in metal garbage cans with lids.
Set traps and check them often.
Keep the traps out for several weeks past the last mouse you catch.
If you find any entry points in your house (holes or gaps), stuff some steel wool into them good and tight.
Mice will not chew through it to come back inside.

huh you saw one mouse and a couple turds? Nothing to freak over... I have a very kept home and I have a cat and dog, guess what. I was over run by mice. They were every where. I was catching them every day in traps. I finally had to have pest control come in. They told me it had nothing to do with how clean you are they were coming in from the drought we are having and had all fall. They were not so much after food, but more for water and warmth. Then of course the ones that do get in have babies and it perpetuates. As long as they are not in your pantry and cupboards your good, just shake out the clothes and work on cleaning up where you see them the most. If you can put Decon in that room that works great as long as the kids and pets cant get into it.

I think someone else may ahv already mentioen this but: steel wool. Plug up all pipe opening with steel wool. Mice do not like it. My parents have a reserve area behind their how & used to get mice until an exterminator plugged up the pip oopengins w/steel wool. We had one teeny tiny mouse a few years back. We foundhim in the drawer under my stove. We plugged up the pipe fittings under the sink w/steel wool & have not seen the little fella since!

Tighten up your house. Ensure they can't sneak in under doors. Check that all locations where you have piping or electrical lines coming in are sealed. If you have bilco doors, stuff the upper and lower joints with some steel wool. Go the hardware store. Buy a couple $1 mouse traps (not rat traps, which are significantly larger and could snare an elephant), and nitrile or vinyl gloves. Set the trap somewhere a cat or family member can't reach. Bait with a 1/2 teaspoon or so of peanut butter. Keep doing it until you don't get any more. Enjoy life once more.

If you don't tighten up your house, you're wasting your time. They don't "learn," so don't be surprised if they sneak in every now and then. Find a really good spot and keep a trap set during the colder months, or alternately, keep an eye out for droppings and then set them again.