Learning that you are sharing your dwelling with mice is a problem that goes back to the dawn of civilisation. And many thousands of years later, the methods of controlling them haven’t changed hugely. About two weeks ago I noticed something dark on the floor out of the corner of my eye when on the XBox – it immediately shot back down into our as yet unfinished (and unfurnished) fireplace.

Subsequent inquiry unearthed a rather unpleasant trail of evidence that suggested Mr Mouse’s appearance that night was not his first. My other half isn’t keen on mice and wouldn’t go downstairs until I promised to block up the fireplace temporarily. While I’m not what I’d call an animal lover insofar as I wouldn’t consider a domestic pet, I am a nature lover and animals form an important part of that tapestry. So I bought some live traps with the hope of releasing the mice on Horsell Common.

After baiting them with raisins, nothing happened for about 72 hours. Then I came down one morning to find two live traps activated – but neither contained a mouse and one didn’t contain any bait either. I spent  hours trying to figure out how any mouse could have got into the trap, taken the bait and got out again while leaving the trap activatated. I’m still not entirely sure.

So after having read up a bit more on the subject, including about the diseases the mice can spread and the fact that house mice don’t get on terribly well in the wild when released anyway, I decided to get tough and set some regular traps. It seemed the kindest thing to do for the mouse as well, given it was likely simply to find another house and get trapped there instead. In addition, I had another sighting of our mouse, this time in the kitchen. Even though I saw it and blocked what I believed were all the escape routes, was it behind our fridge when I pulled it out? Of course not.

So I baited up four traps – three behind the fridge and one elsewhere. I came down this morning to find that the one elsewhere and one behind the fridge had been relieved of their bait but were still cocked for action with not a rodent in sight. Another trap had had its bait nibbled at but not totally removed. I have to admit at being impressed with the ingenuity of my opponent.

And apparently, this isn’t uncommon. More reading online has suggested that a) Mice can seemingly disappear through solid walls b) they have learned how to evade and avoid traps (presumably the fact that these traps have been the same for many hundreds of generations of mice doesn’t help) and c) peanut butter is the suggested bait because it is sticky and difficult to remove without triggering hazards.

I have now invested in two superior traps as well as a jar of peanut butter. There is also a suggestion for a different kind of trap – a homemade one – that mice haven’t evolved to avoid. My father thinks I should poison them but I’m loath to do this - apart from anything else, using the destructive power of human chemical knowledge seems an unfair advantage and akin to an admission of defeat.

If the wily mouse wants a contest, a contest it shall have.

Update 18/12: Poor Mr Mouse lost the contest sometime between midnight and 8am this morning in our dining room. His last meal was peanut butter and I can vouch that it was almost painless – a good clean trap. He may have been a highly-developed scavenger rodent but he was no match for the power of the Rentokil Advanced Mouse Trap and currently awaits collection by Woking Borough Council in my residual waste bin.

My other half was very relieved. “How did he look?” she asked. Er, I think it’s fair to say that he’d looked better…