March 26, 2020:
I feel so sorry for the mouse I killed.
She just wanted a warm, safe place to have her babies. So she built a nest of roofing insulation in the odds & ends drawer in my kitchen. I found it there like a huge pink ball of lint one morning when I needed a fresh flashlight battery. She'd climbed three flights into the attic insulation and down to the kitchen, trip after trip, making warm the dark place she'd thought would be safe.
I killed her with a zapper baited with cheese. POP! Dead mouse.
You have to do this, in the country. I've lived in a mouse-infested home and it was horrific. The cat was killing four of them a day and there were hundreds in the walls. You could hear them scratching. The floor of the laundry room was black from droppings.
So I killed her, threw her corpse into the field for the crows or whoever wanted it. It was already gone when I went by there the next day.
I wish there were a way we could have made the relationship work.