The Mouse Story

OK, so here is one of our little houseguests. I know, blurry picture. But you can see, he is really cute. But he isn't so cute that we actually want him in our kitchen. We found him in our sink. Desperately trying to climb out, but unlucky for him, he was too small and there was nothing to stand on. So we caught him in a glass and Brett carried him (past our doorman who said in his African French Accent--"What are you doing? You've got to keeel the mouse!") across two streets and released him in the inner section of The Park. We were feeling rather smug about it--See we don't need to resort to environmentally damaging, cruel chemicals to rid our place of pests. We just put him out in the food chain where he can make a new life for himself.
Then, I noticed a bad smell coming from somewhere...I didn't think much of it until Maya jumped up onto the washer in the kitchen and her eyes got as big as saucers and she said "There's a mouse in there!" Sure enough, one of Sparky's little friends had fallen into the washer and died. Must have been a couple days ago because he was stiff and starting to stink.
The next day a blur ran from the refrigerator to the washer in broad daylight. Banchi went nuts. Since then we have had multiple sightings. They seem to be living behind the oven. They like to run across the top and into the vents. But they are there at all hours of the day--I don't think they are very smart mice. They sometimes squeak. Banchi is hopeless--he tries, but he is never going to catch one. We now have strict anti-crumb and no dirty dishes in the sink (even for a little while) measures in place and the sightings do seem to have gone down.
I am dying to know what their story is. Like was it a nest of young and they were all ready to venture into the big world and on the same night when they were running across our counter one fell in the washer and the brother fell into the sink when we unexpectedly entered the kitchen and surprised them? Then the mom probably thought "Dammit--I told them to slow down--two lost on their first night out, Ah, well, at least I've got 9 more, I'm sure one of them will make it to their 2nd week!" Was the one running across from the fridge--was that the one we had put in the park? Coming home after narrow escapes with cars and owls to tell his story to his siblings?
I read on the internet that they can find their way home up to 2 miles away. Also that only 5% of mice make it past their first year. Sigh. Our tolerance is going down--we may soon have to resort to drastic measures. All I know is I have definitely been reading too much Mouse and the Motorcycle. I am starting to think of the squeaking as the "squeaky, annoying little brothers and sisters" and the ones I see running around as the adventurous ones--longing for motorcycles and boys to play with. I have even been tempted to leave them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But the tide is turning--really now we are starting to plot the various alternative ways of giving them the scratch.