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AFAIK, the houses in california hot places are built from stone and stone-related materials for the same reason as those in Florida: termites. All the buildings in Orlando are made of concrete (yeah. REALLY appealing and attractive...) because otherwise the termites eat them into nothing.

Mice: I wouldn't worry about it too much. They may even have died of fright - many mice do - if the cats were too aggressive. The average lifespan of a well-cared-for pet rat is two years, and that of a mouse I believe is shorter than that of a rat, so more likely than not they'd already lived a fair share of their life expectancy.

Speaking of pets though, let me get on my soapbox for a sentence or two: everybody out there please chip your pets!!! It's cheap and it's just a tiny little microchip with an ID number on it associated with a database record where you store your contact information (which you can change if you need to). The chances of recovering a lost dog or cat that is microchipped are FAR better than otherwise. My girl got chipped at two months, and I feel way, way better because of it.

Glad you got to see Paul, sucks that his dad causes overload, and in general welcome back :)