I did something this weekend that even I couldn’t believe I did.

I vacuumed up a mouse.

I was bending down in the entry hall with the vacuum hose in my hand when I saw a mouse watching me from between the legs of the wooden clothes rack, and I thought, “Here’s my chance.”

It made a “thwoop” sound as it got sucked down the hose, whereupon I belatedly asked myself, “Chance for what???”

I now had a mouse somewhere within the vacuum and I had to figure out what to do with it.

It was one of those cute little wild deer mice with the beady black eyes, twitching bewhiskered noses, and tiny, almost-human hands. Maybe it was the same one that shredded my favorite hat on a nearby shelf.

Though the hat-eater could have been the mouse I found the cat batting around the living room in the early pre-dawn two days before. By the time I got to it, this mouse was walking punch-drunk past the cat’s nose in an ill-considered attempt to change hiding places. I got an old cottage cheese carton, clapped it over the hapless creature and threw it out onto the snow bank where I thought it could at least die peacefully.

On the other hand, the hat-eater might have been the mouse the cat left on the den rug a few days previous to that. I’m sure it was a mouse (though it mostly didn’t look like one) because I distinctly saw its cute little bewhiskered nose, though the nose was separate from the other regurgitated body parts and it wasn’t twitching. Who said cats were dainty?

I don’t think the hat-eater is the same mouse that has decided to nest in the silverware drawer, or the one who has been leaving me half-eaten potatoes in the pantry, because they each checked into different suites in this grand hotel for mice I appear to be running here. The silverware-drawer mouse rang for a bellhop Sunday when he got his fingers caught swiping some peanut butter under the kitchen sink, rattling around until he attracted assistance. And come to his assistance I did. It’s a good thing I keep a lot of old cottage cheese cartons around.

You may be thinking that that’s a lot of mice to be hosting in such a short time – and so am I. I suppose the crest of this mouse invasion has come a little late this year because of the warm fall we had. But when you think about it, where would you rather be – in some dark hole in the frozen ground or at the Ritz-Carlton with warm rooms, clean linens, and an endless supply of food?

The mice I see here are the tan or gray backed, white-bellied deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatis) – a native creature and distant cousin to the all-gray house mouse common in urban areas (Mus musculus). Their different, wild habits are the reason I find birdseed between the sheets stacked in the closet when I carelessly leave the seed accessible. But I have found their droppings far from food sources or interesting, shreddable bedding. They seem to like my house as much as I do, exploring all its corners.

Last spring, a Waterville man adopted a couple of deer mice after they swiped his dentures and hid them in the wall. He found the dentures, caught the mice, bought them an aquarium, and made them into bosom pals. But he later released them because Fish and Wildlife experts warned him that they could carry a rare deadly virus. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome hasn’t actually yet occurred in Maine but is transmitted by deer mice in other states in which it has appeared.

So much for the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach.

I figure mice have the entire great out of doors, which I am willing to share with them. It’s only when they come within my walls that we have an argument. This old house I live in has multiple mouse entrances, all with “Welcome” signs posted over the door. I can’t hope to win this battle, but some kind of equilibrium in my favor is needed.

Old-fashioned snap traps are my method of choice. (If you live-trap deer mice, know that they will travel up to two miles back to their native territory when released, so it’s no good just sneaking over to the neighbor’s yard to let them go.) Deer mice are extremely light-footed, and can rob a trap of its bait without setting it off, so you have to bait them right. My method is to take a teensy amount of cheese (tiny! you are not providing a meal!) and smoosh it tightly into that curled over metal part of the bait tray. Then dab it with a whisper of peanut butter, a delectable odor that travels far in the mouse world. If the trap is not successful in a few days, revitalize it with a fresh smear of peanut butter.

The rest is housekeeping, never my favorite job. But I have now washed all the silverware and left it on the kitchen counter under the watchful eye of the cat while I keep a trap in the drawer for a while. I checked for new holes under the sink and am wandering into the corners of the house with my cleaning rag and my bleach solution muttering “Hantavirus, indeed!”