Ray's mouse trap

Back when I was in college I was living in this house with like five friends of mine. It was kind of a party house, always a crowd, and quite messy. I swore up and down that the house was haunted and several of my room mates agreed but that's another story. We first noticed the mice a few months after we had moved in. They liked to hang out in my room for some reason, even though it was the cleanest room in the house. I could never get a real good look at the mice because they were so fast. We had a dilemma in that we wanted to get rid of the mice without killing them. I had looked into humane mouse traps but none of them looked like they would work. They were also expensive and I was a poor college kid at the time. One day when I was visiting my mom and Ray I had told them about the situation and my need for a humane mousetrap. Ray immediately took an interest. It was as if I saw a light turn on above his head as he started gathering components from around the house, one of which was a conventional snap type mousetrap. You know, one of the ones made of wood that spring into action when the mouse steps on the trigger. Ray sat in the kitchen tinkering with the ingredients of what would become a very clever device. It consisted of the snap trap, an empty soup can, some fine wire mesh, and the lid of the empty soup can. I have to admit that I was skeptical but I left Ray to work his magic. After several minutes I came back into the kitchen to find Ray putting the finishing touches on this device. It was a marvelous invention, the soup can was attached to the snap trap to act as a cage, it sort of sat fixed on one side of the wood plank. The mesh formed a tunnel that was attached to the plank as well, this mesh tunnel fed into the can which allowed for the trigger to be set. The lid of the can was attached to the snap part of the trap to act as a door. This was the challenging part of the design but a little bit of cardboard and duct tape made for a perfect door to the cage. Some shredded newspaper made for a comfy little cage for the mouse. It was truly amazing, Ray had taken this device that was designed to kill a mouse and turned it into a humane trap with just a few household parts, it was brilliant! The trap worked like a charm, I knew the mice liked to run along the baseboards in my room, so I put it directly in their path. A little peanut butter and cracker was enough to lure the critters in. I'm pretty sure I caught 9 mice in that trap. Ray had such an inventive spirit and I was inspired by the creation of this humane mouse trap. I’m not sure where that trap is today. I had left it at the house when I moved out in case there were more mice to catch. I think I could make one if the opportunity ever arose. Thanks to Ray for being so creative and compassionate.