I have a female cat who brings rodent to me as the offering to the pack’s lead at least every other week, she started as a cute house-only cat who was allowed to get out, and liked it in the process.
My daughter moved back in a couple of years ago while she was getting through the college and she brought two adult cats, brother and sister, who never left her apartment before. In a couple of months, they both joined the hunt.
If your cat is not a “mouser”, get him to the proper on-work training program?
Female cats are the answer, but make sure they are spayed. Male cats don’t hunt unless they absolutely have to. They will catch a mouse and play with it for a while if they are bored, but they often let it go in the end in hopes for another “play date” with it.
Edit: if your not bothered by them, rat snakes will keep the mouse population down.
One sort of final thought. What you’re worrying about hasn’t happened yet. You’ve noted that someone you know in town had mice. My experience living in a rural area and driving the car daily is that I’ve never had trouble. The experiences of others have been different. In other words, it’s hard to predict what will happen and it would be best to simply deal with whatever happens if it happens. As the saying goes, burn that bridge when you get to it and only start worrying if you really need to.
Was Executive chef at a Holiday Inn in Grand Forks ND, front door was fended off by a mole in attack mode while I was manager on duty. Took about an hour to figure what to do. Approach the critter it would hiss and snarl, run at you then go back to the doorway. Finally security guy got a box over it, slipped cardboard underneath, flipped the box and let it go in a nearby field, not really car related but a fun story.
