This is the cat for you.

One needs an excuse to get a cat? Who knew?!

Yeah really, my excuse was like "cats are cute."

Heh. That's how I originally sold my cat as useful to my fiance. He had mice. We moved in together. He stopped having mice. Because he did not see the cat doing anything actively to solve the mice problem, it took him a while to accept that the cat had solved the mice. But she did.

She does not, however, solve bug problems. Apparently that is some other cat's job.

How do I deal with the mouse in the apartment. It is not mouse. It can go wherever it wants to in the entire building, it's not actively eating my shit ( I dint have a lot of sacks of dry grains around ) it just kind of ....shows up. Two nights in a row.

Like I feel like I should set a trap but I also figure the place is so big and has exterminators and the mouse isn't bugging me so? I feel like I can ignore this.

Er, is not MY house, cause it's a big shared building and I assume the mouse has a large roaming area.

I kinda liked your zen explanation the first time:

How do I deal with the mouse in the apartment. It is not mouse.

I was like, Ooh, a mouse that is not mouse. Yes, Names can name no lasting name.

Deep.

I had mice a while back, too. If it gets to the point that it can't be ignored, then glue traps placed around the place (five or six of them, near the walls) work very well. A little dab of peanut butter in the center makes them more attractive.

(caveat terminator: The immobilized mouse will probably still be alive when you find it, and when you throw away the capture to starve to death in the dumpster. So far, I don't have any ghost mice coming back for vengeance....)

"excuse to get a cat?" Why?

They is cool.

Now I have an excuse to get a cat.

I trapped about 45 mice in the first three years I lived in Swan's End, and then adopted Trilby. It was less "I had an excuse to get a cat" than "I snapped and got a cat".

This is how we acquired our very first cat, from the pound in Kentucky. (She was cute too. A total calico, with black fur around one eye, orange fur around the other.) She moused the whole house in less than a month.

Also, one of the funniest things we ever saw was her fruitless effort to educate one of her kittens (in the one and only litter she had before we spayed her) to catch a mouse. She was demonstrating the round up and bat between paws technique. Her kitten didn't get it and let the mouse go. Our cat sat at the organ stop entrance where the mouse had run for nearly 2 days, without success. She never really seemed to like her kitten much after tht.

We used to hear mice in the walls. Then we got a cat, because we wanted a cat. He brought us a few mouse presents (and a couple of rats) and we have NEVER since then heard mice in the walls. I think they smell cat and just don't move in. Now he brings in mice from outside.

Luckily for us he is not bothered about birds. I would be sad if he caught birds.

Just read the thread about cats as environmental menace over on Metafilter. I won't be contributing to that one. Indoor cats are pretty rare in this country.

She does not, however, solve bug problems. Apparently that is some other cat's job.

occhi, that's my cat's job. When I went to bed last night, I left him in the living room, fearlessly chasing down a 3-inch spider. He usually eats them, and then makes a face that says "that tasted awful". But he will still eat the next one.

Trilby definitely looks upon bugs and insects as prey and snackfood. I've had some problems with pantry moths this summer and last summer, and Trilby really seems to enjoy stalking, swatting and eating them. He'd make dramatic leaps in the air if necessary to catch them. But I've had a wasp or two in the house recently, and he won't mess with them. Does he know? He also won't eat a dead bug, only his own kills.