Mouse advice needed

First, let me say that I have never once seen a mouse or a trace of a mouse around my house. I live in a townhouse, which is a part of a block of 4. It’s not rural, but it does back up to some grass and trees. There are various critters around and in the yard. I’ve definitely seen birds, squirrels, little brown bunny rabbits and the rare deer.

Several months ago, my neighbor who shares a wall with me and had recently moved in called and left a message that they had an exterminator in and they had found “signs of mice” in his yard and was going to treat and suggested that I also treat for mice. My only previous experience was seeing a mouse in my last apartment which I caught with a snap trap. I left traps out with peanut butter but found the peanut butter gone but the traps not sprung. I then switched to glue traps (never again!) and returned to find one with just a tail on it. Knowing that there was now an angry mouse (or rat-it was a very large tail) out there bent on revenge, I did the only sensible thing and moved.

Anyway, I called my neighbor back and left a message saying that maybe we could coordinate any extermination efforts to avoid sending mice back and forth. He never replied so I texted him and also got no reply. My main concern was that he not poison the mice that then could somehow come into my house and my cats could eat them and get sick. My thoughts at the time were that we would never be able to completely rid the outside area of mice as they could just keep coming back from the open areas and since I had seen no mice or evidence of mice that maybe they would stay outside. I also thought that maybe the cats would scare them away (the mice don’t know how stupid the cats are).

Today, I got a text saying that his nanny had seen mice outside by the garbage that then ran toward my garage. So, those of you who know about mice can advise me here.
Do I need an exterminator?
Can I avoid doing anything that would potentially hurt my cats?
Am I just looking to block any holes where they could get into the house or is there a way to get permanently rid of them?
Why won’t my neighbor ever call or text me back?

If you have mice in your house, block up all possible entries for them (you may want a pro to do this) and set snap traps for the ones still inside. If you don’t have mice in your house, do nothing. Dont’ worry about them being outside your house, because outside is where you want them.

(You especially don’t want to poison them as they may go into the walls to die, and that doesn’t smell good, and it takes a long time for the smell to go away.)

Set up a bucket mousetrap in your garage - google it for instructions.

Basic snap traps work well inside, check the trigger to be sure it will spring as some may not easily be set off. So far the standard, cheap wood platformed and dual-springed trap has worked well around here. Be sure to place them out of cat paw space…

Good luck in the mouse wars.

Then borrow my Little Girls. They will present the leftovers on a plate.

Snap traps won’t work because my kitties WILL set them off.

This is what I was thinking but as I noted, my neighbor keeps calling to tell me that they are around. I guess I will call an exterminator to block off all points of entry but the question is what if anything to do about potential outside mice.

I should add that you really don’t want mice in your garage either, as they can nest in your car’s air filter, etc. and chew thru wires causing expensive damage. So, same thing, seal up all points of entry and set snap traps (and keep your cats out of the garage).