A mouse looks out from wood.

The makings of a midnight mouse snack were left in the middle of the living room floor of our vacation rental in Lake Tahoe: shredded paper and bits of granola, taken from an open backpack. The evidence was enough to lead some of my family to believe we weren’t the only ones in the house. I’d seen similar rodent leftovers before, and my mind was made up.

I never actually saw a mouse in our vacation rental, but my family trip to Lake Tahoe occurred in the midst of an unprecedented invasion of rodents, first outlined in an eyebrow-raising email I received from the rental company several weeks before I arrived.

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The company, Agate Bay Realty Lake Tahoe, sent a note to all upcoming renters in mid-July informing us of a “current regional situation” in which North Tahoe was experiencing a “surge in mouse activity.”

“Hardware stores have run out of traps,” the note said. 

Evidence of mice observed while staying in a national forest is unsurprising to me, to say the least. But with recent cases of hantavirus and the plague in Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada, not to mention the recent death of actor Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, from hantavirus, my antennae were up.

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The notice went on to clarify that only 10% of Agate’s inventory, or five different properties, were dealing with the rodent issue. In total, Agate operates about 50 short-term and seven long-term rentals across Tahoe.

Hardware stores in Tahoe are selling out of mousetraps.

I immediately emailed the company to ask if my rental unit — a dog-friendly cabin overlooking the lake in North Tahoe’s Carnelian Bay — was one of the five or so properties impacted by rodents, and a representative from Agate was happy to confirm it was not overridden with mice. I later learned I was one of several paranoid renters that company officials heard from following their message.

“When you have an event that is impacting the entire area, it’s good to be proactive........

© SFGate