Mice-stery

I love good mysteries; they're fun. However, I don't like mice. They're really obnoxious. When the two come together, I find myself more than a little bit frustrated.

So the story goes like this: Once upon a time, we had some mice in the basement. I put out some glue traps and some snap traps, but the mice ignored them even when I put peanut butter no-bake cookies down as bait. No, they preferred our garbage bags. They seem to like those best no matter what is in them: winter clothes in storage, smelly garbage ready to go out.... So we were annoyed, but didn't know what else to do.

Then, one night, they got brave and ventured upstairs to the kitchen. They dug up the dirt in my potted plants. They chewed holes in three of my tote bags, looking for snacks. They even chewed on some garbage bags. Hmm. My annoyance ramped up to anger and frustration. We were headed out of town for a night, so I decided to go a bit farther. I put three baited covered traps and a plastic dish of glue traps upstairs. Downstairs, I put out two small trays of D-Con mouse and rat poison. Now, that's a bit extreme for me. I don't mind killing the mice, but poison isn't my first choice for several reasons- not the least of which is that I have no idea where they're going to keel over.

Upon our return, I checked the traps and bait. No evidence of any activity. I removed the upstairs traps, but continued to place them out at night. Still no activity. A few days later, I went down to check the trays. Gone. Not just the poison pellets. Both trays... all of it, the whole kit and kaboodle... and with no evidence of spilled bait anywhere.

Now, there are not too many places for mice to take two trays without spilling anything. I decided to start at square one and think hard. Not really mice? Hmm. Very meticulous mice? Hmm. I got nowhere with my hard thinking. We cleared out half of the old, empty boxes we've been meaning to recycle. No poison, but some evidence of mice (shredded paper). Hmm.

All of this is unnerving on several levels. First of all, what kind of creature are we dealing with here? Second, WHERE IS THE POISON? I really, really don't like the idea that they are now in total control. I'm just not ready to admit that they have me beat. My only option, as I see it, is to wait and see what they will do next. Any other ideas?