Not to make you freak even more, but it's probably inside the couch frame somewhere

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm afraid of.

And the cat thing--well, last time I had a mouse (not at this apartment, a few years back) we borrowed a cat and it was freakin' SCARED of the mouse!!! We ended up cornering it ourselves, with a broom, in the kitchen, and it turned out to be a little tiny thing. We almost (almost) felt bad for it.

This one was a medium-sized mouse. Not big, which is good, but not teeny tiny either. And IN MY HOUSE!!!

Also: suggestions as to where I could easily get some freakin' traps or poison or something? And what's the best sort to get? I'm given to understand traditional mousetraps, not so useful....

Many moons ago we used DeCon MousePruf, or something like that (can't recall the name exactly), and found it at the grocery store and the hardware store.

Okay, that took about 10 tries to post and it wasn't even worth the trouble. I think someone's trying to tell me it's bath time for babies.

Traditional mousetraps are better. You know exactly where the dead mouse is once it's dead. My brother baits them with peanut butter, works like a charm. You just can't be squeamish (like me) about disposing of the wee corpse.

ION, if I'm going to get a blister on the bottom of my big toe from my shoes, I want those shoes to be diamond shoes, damnit, and they aren't. I done got cheated.

Traditional mousetraps are better. You know exactly where the dead mouse is once it's dead. My brother baits them with peanut butter, works like a charm. You just can't be squeamish (like me) about disposing of the wee corpse.

I recommend a husband. I know, I know, they come with baggage, and other things that some of you don't want. But at mouse corpse disposal, they're tops!

Most of the commercial traps work fine if they're baited with peanut butter. I agree with Sail; the problem with poison is they go off and die somewhere unfortunate, like under the refrigerator. I'm not too thrilled with dealing with tiny corpses either. It's much easier if you just do what I do, which is to throw away the trap too. My theory is that it's worth a couple of bucks to spend a minimum amount of time with the dear departed.

It was a wonderful thing when the boys were old enough to handle vermin corpse disposal. We had a baby possum in the pool once that B.Jr. got rid of for me. With 3 guys around now I am rapidly turning into a big girly girl.

Just don't get those sticky traps. Those are horrid.

Right now I am trying to convince myself that it's not so much "my" mouse as just...passing through. But I rather doubt that.

The mouse is probably pregnant and building a condo in your walls.

We've always had cats, but not mousers. Our last cat, Bogey actually brought a live mouse INSIDE from OUTSIDE. What kind of mouse gets caught by a declawed cat, I ask you?

I made DH catch it alive and walk three blocks to the park to set it free. I like the humane live traps, but that's just me.

See, at my parents' house, at one point, we tried regular traps, but the mice were too smart, and kept managing to get the peanut butter without setting off the trap...

I'd be calling NIMH, meara.