I have lived in my house for almost 30 years and although I have seen several mice in the yard/shed over the years never anything in the house. My big pest problem is cave crickets. For years,I have been using those sticky mice pads in the basement to catch the cave crickets (very effective). Today I found out that I caught a mouse instead. Aside from being totally creeped out, I am a little panicked. Does one usually mean there are more - what should I do? (I did put another trap down in that same location.)
Probably means you have more but not necessarily. Kind of strange this time of year. In my neck of the woods, they’re usually looking for winter accommodations.
Personally, I’d use the old fashioned snap traps. They’re a much more humane way of killing mice. Peanut butter is good bait.
Field mice are too cute to kill (for me). We use a live trap and relocate them to a local park. We do often just get one, but I have had families a few times.
Everyone knows I am a dog lover, but I suggest you get a cat
Aww, I love mice… If you have any food supplies in the basement, I would inspect them and around them to see if there is any “evidence” of more. When we had mice in the basement, they chewed holes in boxes and in other organic type things (fabric, etc.).
We had a massive mouse problem one year – so bad that you could sometimes see them running up and down the basement walls. It turned out that the mice had chewed through the covering of an unopened bag of grass seed in the garage, and that there was a tiny hole in the garage wall that gave them access to the basement. Traps, poison, and even an extreme cleaning of the basement solved nothing. Getting rid of the bag of grass seed did.
During this period, baby mice got into the air conditioning ducts of our Toyota on two occasions and died there, creating a quite remarkable smell – and a quite remarkable bill, since this is a problem that can only be solved by taking the air conditioning system apart.
Check around your house and its immediate environs to see whether there’s anything that a mouse might want to eat. That’s likely to be what’s attracting them.
You need to find where the mouse got in and seal it. My grandmother believed shavings of Irish Spring soap placed around the basement kept mice away. She also said peppermint worked. I live in a heavily wooded area and get mice in the fall. I call the exterminator and they ALWAYS find new openings, unfortunately. The snap traps have never caught the mice but the sticky traps have caught all of them. I hate using them but they have been more effective.
We periodically get mice. We have a contract with an exterminator and when we see signs we give them a call. They put out black triangle shaped boxes which apparently contained poison food which makes the mice very thirsty. The mice eat the food and then leave the house looking for something to drink and then die outside somewhere. It seems to work.
https://www.amazon.com/Rat-Zapper-Classic-Trap-RZC001/dp/B002665ZTC
We use this whenever we have the occasional rodent problem. It works very well and I appreciate that there’s no blood or gross stuff – just tilt it and the dead mouse/rat falls into the trash. No muss, no fuss! We use it with the remote monitor when we have rats in the attic. That way we don’t have to go up there to check the trap.
https://www.amazon.com/Rat-Zapper-Remote-Monitor-12-Foot/dp/B000EAASHG/ref=pd_bxgy_86_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B000EAASHG&pd_rd_r=V6NMZ62TVE3A5534YEDS&pd_rd_w=MMdDz&pd_rd_wg=X1F1I&psc=1&refRID=V6NMZ62TVE3A5534YEDS
A caution against hiring “professional” exterminators. I did. They told me I have mice (which I obviously already knew), set up snap traps (which I could have done myself), gave us some anti-rodent advice (which I could have Google’d), and charged me hundreds of dollars (which I still regret paying).
He laughed when I asked if he would come back to check and dispose of the “used” traps.
Yes, the mice went away, but I could have done it all myself for less than the price of an AP exam.
I use a professional for the big invaders: raccoons and opossums. I deal with the mice myself. I will confess to shuddering, for example, when a mouse drowned in the kitchen sink and I didn’t realize it until I emptied the mayonnaise jar filled with water and when a mouse was caught in a “kill” trap but only by its tail so I had to very carefully pick up the trap to take it outside and free the mouse. (In my house, if the mouse survives, it wins the round.)
We put a Tomcat bait station behind the stove, where we think they were coming in through an opening for the gas line. Seems to be working, but time will tell.
I live in a wooded area as well- I use an exterminator- charges me $75. He puts the black triangle boxes inside and outside my house. Works very well - I do not want to see a mouse in a trap! Plus I have dogs, they would bother the traps but don’t pay any attention to the black boxes.
Brings back memories of the mouse who got into our newly built house near some woods when son was 3. He named it “Friendly” and we captured it (in the kitchen or bathroom- it escaped first the attempt) using a shoebox and released it outside. Had some spaces closed up and no more problems. Many years later some raccoons lifted up a corner of a soffit and nested in the attic- definitely a job for the pros, which insurance covered completely, including adding new insulation where it was worn down for their running path around the perimeter.
“I do not want to see a mouse in a trap!”
Thank goodness for husbands! Mine gets mouse and bug duty. My job is to just shriek. Yes, I know, I’m a stereotype. 
I’m the critter capturer et al in our house- H will show me a bug and I usually am the one to kill and dispose it, sigh. Another kid memory- H and son (probably around 3 or so) went to the local Wildlife Sanctuary and brought home a purchased rubber snake. I did the scared shriek thing to delight son even though I wasn’t at all scared. Recently I helped a neighbor capture and destroy a baby snake that got into her house (likely through opened garage and door)- did not release it as it was probably poisonous and could have found its way back in again. Miss the lack of poisonous snakes around our area when was in WI- FL so different.
Seal all openings around utility lines. It is not that hard. Exterminators may or may not do this… They want your business which will dry up if the house is pest-proofed. 
Use steel wool or copper mesh. They can chew through many materials, including the wiring in your walls.
Each of the neighborhoods where I have lived during the past 30 years – one urban, one quasi-rural – has had the same two, mutually exclusive classes of people: People with mice, and people with cats. You have to choose which group you want to belong to.
Are all cats mousers, though?