When the Phi Chi mice start taunting you

There's a mouse in my room, and I fear that it might be craftier than me.

Last week, I put out poison. The box sat for a day until I decided to wedge a piece of cheese into it (hoping that the mouse would eat some poison with its midnight snack).

The next time I saw the box, the mouse had just dragged the cheese out and left it about 6 inches away, as if to say "You call this cheese?!"

I decided to take some advice from one of my neighbors and put out the sticky traps tonight. Lo and behold, within a couple of hours, I found a mouse 1/2 way trapped on one. Unfortunately, when I went to find a dust pan, the mouse somehow managed to pull itself free. And now I have a pissed off mouse with a bald spot running around my abode!

Later I tried to use nature against my new foe: I convinced one of the "house cats" (read: strays that hangs around Phi Chi) to come into my room, thinking it would follow its instincts. I guess feline instincts now involve running away from anything reeking of rodent. First, I tried to get it to smell the trap that "caught" the mouse earlier tonight... it didn't seem interested.

I even resorted to *bribing* the cat with tuna to get it to go near the closet (the last place I saw the mouse). The cat just refused to eat the tuna once it was placed near the closet. Is there some mouse-cat truce (the "Tom and Jerry Accord"??) that I wasn't aware of?

The cat DID manage to get itself stuck on TWO of the sticky traps, tho... even after I picked them up off the floor. The cat got booted after that, but I'm sure it left some fleas (or fungus... thanks pulmonary course for freaking me out about that prospect!) around here.

I'm hoping the cat left enough of its scent that the mouse will be too scared to come back... but I did leave a piece of corned beef and some peanut butter on a couple more traps, just in case.