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[Grakelin]

I knew I had gotten desperate when I started searching Kijiji for cats with which to fight the menace.

It became ever more clear when I paused and looked at what I had just typed into google:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[NRDL]

Are conventional rat traps ( Tom and Jerry style, glue traps, poison ) not working?  Really, are you going to get a cat just so it can hunt down these rats?  My suggestion:

A. Set traps everywhere ( yeah people do these a lot, I know )

B. If Plan A doesn't work, get a defanged snake.  One that actually hunts rodents

C. Call an exterminator

D. If none of these work, burn down your house. 

[Max White]

Take better care of your food. If you have one mouse, chances are you have an infestation, so you need to cut off their food source. Don't leave food in the open, and seal away anything you open. Remember to clean plates when your done with them, and you should do a massive laundry run or two.

[RedKing]

Alternately, grow a pair. It's a MOUSE. 

Like Max said, just make sure the place isn't a mess and there isn't lots of food lying out in the open, then set a few traps. We periodically get mice in our house. Caught one the other day, in fact. I use live-catch traps, then drop them off by the edge of some pasture on the way to work. Plenty of tall grass for them to hide in and make a nest, and if a snake or hawk or whatever gets them...meh, circle of life.

[Grakelin]

I'm concerned because they nest in cardboard boxes after chewing holes in them, and my roommate and I both have extensive board game collections.

[RedKing]

Oh man, they have traps that don't kill or otherwise mutilate the mouse?

That is awesome.

I need to remember that if it comes up in the future.

Although living in the city, I'm not really sure where I'd be able to let a mouse go. /chinstroke

Parks. I used to let them go at a nearby city park with a lake when I live more "in-town".
This is pretty similar to the kind I use.

Alternately, use your DF-derived ingenuity and devise fiendish mousetrap that involve levers, drawbridges, magma, and large serrated steel blades.

[Dsarker]

I can get all the other stuff easily, but how would we get levers?

[Max White]

One can only speculate.

[MonkeyHead]

Living in rural North Wales, mice are a common thing here. Things I have learnt:

1: It doesnt matter that my house is clean, tidy and isnt covered with waste food. If your neighbours are messy (or like around me, farmland) they will be around wether you like it or not.

2: If you can fit a pencil in a hole, a mouse can get in it. Wire wool/steel scouring pads has proven to be a good mouse proof hole filler, as have ceramic tiles cemented in place.

3: They are most active at dawn and dusk. Dont leave traps out all day as they will begin to smell of human, and mice will avoid them. put them out before going to bed and check them in the morning.

4: The 2 best things for baiting traps are bacon fat and chocolate spread.

5: Mice are half blind and run along walls and the bottom of units. Place traps along these run paths, probably indicated by mouse poo, mouse wee and grubby black marks.

6: Mouse poison is great, but a poisioned mouse will probably go back to its nest while dying. This is good as it can spead the poision to the whole nest (which could have 3 or 4 generations of mice in it - they can reach sexual maturity after 14 days and only take a week to gestate), but these nests are often between walls or under floors. Rotting mice dont smell nice.

7: Finding the nest and getting rid of the babies is better at controlling the numbers ahead of trapping the males foraging for food.

8: Find where they are nesting by following thier crawlway paths. Then do what I did and fill it with cement. No mice for 18 months so far.

9: Cats arent so great. They will play with them, letting them get away more than half the time. Little dogs are good - Jack russel or Scots terrier - they will find them and eat them most of the time.

10: The most reliable traps are the least humane. The old wire spring ones work best for me, followed by glue pads. The catch and release ones have on more than one occasion let a mouse escape. The little buggers then learnt to avoid them. Chasing them around with a hammer and a bucket was fun but pointless.

[Bauglir]

Incidentally, in the interests of science, our last mouse preferred American cheese to peanut butter. You may wish to set out traps with similarly diverse bait to improve the odds of one being taken, and to collect data on mouse preferences. Remember that they should go in out-of-the-way places where a mouse is likely to be moving to stay out of sight anyway.

Ninja'd.

[Dsarker]

Yeah, don't get cats for mice. Get cats for snakes. Previously abandoned cats are best for this, as they're much more likely to want food (which they'll associate with small critters) than just love and attention.

[RedKing]

Ours seem to prefer maple butter to peanut butter. Guess we have gourmand mice.

"Mmm, yes....a very nice vintage, solid maple flavor without being overpowering, a nice grainy texture...oh shit, where'd the door go?"

[Cecilff2]

Hey if all else fails...there's always magma. (I assume you have a floodgate lever, like any normal person would)

[Mushroo]

The plastic "T-Rex" style traps cost a little more than the old-school wire traps, but they're worth it IMHO. I've had good luck with cream cheese (not being a bacon eater).

Don't feel bad about killing them. They are filthy vermin with exponential population growth.

[GlyphGryph]

Luckily we only seem to get squirrels up here. Adorable red squirrels.

But damn can those things cause some damage.