Don't read this unless you want to read about maimed rats

I'm going to have nightmares.

OK, so about a month ago Isaac and I looked up from the couch in my place to see a mouse peering down at us. Or rat, probably, since it was five or six inches long. Jeanie and I said, hm, maybe we should get mousetraps, and then forgot about it. But in the last couple weeks, we saw at least three in our living room--one bigger one and two about the same size. They're getting bolder...chewing our carpet, crawling around on our food shelves. So we got two Victors (apparently rat traps have names) and set one of them (the other one smashed Jeanie's finger and wouldn't work when I tried to set it, either). Not like we'd know what to do with a trapped rat, but that's what the cartoons have taught us to do. It was sprung the other day but no dead mouse/rat. Today when I left the house, there were two mice scampering around me as I slipped through the door, wanting to shriek like the girl I am, and when we came back home...this little guy was huddled in the corner, walking instead of running away from us. We turned on all the lights and got close enough to check him out. He seemed fine, not limping or anything, and then suddenly I noticed his pulse was pounding in his head, through an opening right between his eyes. Sickened, we sat back and tried to decide how to put him out of misery, but he crawled out the door and into the bushes before we could stop him. Later we realized he'd tracked blood and droppings all over the rugs in our room, over some books and clothes.... Screw rat traps, is all I can say. They are inhumane and horrible, and I can't possibly kill anything larger than a cane spider, especially not something with a cute furry face. There has to be another way to avoid disease and baby rats and holes chewed in carpets....