Repeating Mouse Traps

I finally sprung on a few repeating mouse traps, that claim to catch up to 30 mice at a time. I can't echo just how satisfying it is to check these traps in the basement, laundry and garage, and see mice trapped inside ... so much better than setting the individual traps. Of course ... I have yet to deal with what is trapped inside so I may change my mind later ...

Dang it now I have check the one in the basement again, it had two in it earlier ... hoping to see a full house, the mice just invade once the weather turns cool in the fall ...

Thats the drawback. If its a live capture trap you have to check to regularly.

Checking yes, and hopefully watching the catch grow, and of course emptying at least once every 24 hrs. I'll admit my main goal isn't the live capture, it's the not having to reset so many single catch traps all the time, those are a pain. This house has a fieldstone foundation so the best I can do is catch mice when they come in. I'm not at all for hurting or causing undue harm to any animals. Though one reviewer of these traps said not to use peanut butter because it could cause the mice to suffocate, well, I don't know, mine seem to be doing just fine on their diet of peanut butter and shelled peanuts. Oh and the reviewer said not to sit it directly on a concrete floor because the trapped mice might get too cold.

Decon!!! The poison in this stuff makes mice get very thirsty and thus they go outside to look for water and die.

The traps are great but its hard to win the war with them....

Hm ... could try the bait blocks. I've tried those pellets that come in the little bags, and oh yes they'll take all they can get, but they never seem to eat it. I just find it neatly stowed away all over the place. I've heard you need the blocks so they basically have to eat it on the spot. I've heard you can put the old traditional 'non safe' antifreeze in a small saucer so they'll drink it which is, well, very bad of course for any living thing to drink.

I don't care for poisons. They eat it and in my case don't leave the house but crawl inside the walls and die. We don't know that they are dead until a week later when the unmistakable odor arrives.

Ever try the sound thing that scares them away? My cousin uses it at his mountain cabin and in all my time going up there, I've only found one mouse in this traps.

Rat trap!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGM-eS4Nrmk

Cool better than my idea of a air cannon to shoot them over to the next block. Of course the problem is then the neighbors would get one too and there would be mice flying back and forth......

Try my redneck mouse trap.


Take a five gallon pail (an old one please!). Fill it one third full of water. Put a smear of eanut butter on the inside wall about 4" down from the top. Then provide the mice a nice ramp for them walk up so they can go swimming.

I have a repeating trap but it rarely catches anything. Then I forget to check it for a few days and THEN they get in there and die.

I prefer the clamshell style single traps. they reset with just a pinch. To release the dead mouse, just pinch.

Poison is not good for the reasons of they can die inside your walls, and they can carry poison to cats if they get eaten. Not a big deal if you don't have cats I guess.

The water in a bucket trick works very well.

estricklin said:

Decon!!! The poison in this stuff makes mice get very thirsty and thus they go outside to look for water and die.

The traps are great but its hard to win the war with them....

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This is a myth. There are no poisons that do this. Mice eat and return to their nests. If the nest is outside, they go outside. If it's in your wall, they die in your wall.

Airborneguy said:

Ever try the sound thing that scares them away? My cousin uses it at his mountain cabin and in all my time going up there, I've only found one mouse in this traps.

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The sonic things are basically a scam. They might temporarily deter the mice, but eventually they just get used to the sound. Mice fear anything new in the environment until they get used to it, which usually doesn't take very long.

Hm I will have to try the bucket trick.

So I caught three mice in the basement in the repeating trap. Interesting, there were two in there when I went to bed that were very chummy. This morning when I checked it, there was a third one in there. But apparentley they did not get along! This third mouse - well - it was dead - and it's throat was ripped out!

By the way, where are you releasing these mice? Or what are you doing with them after you've caught a bunch?

JJL said:

Or what are you doing with them after you've caught a bunch?

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Frying them up of course! Didn't you see Never Cry Wolf?!?

Interesting in regards to the sonic device. He's happy with it though, I know that. I used to go up there a lot and only found one mouse. Maybe there's not too many around to begin with?

Welll ... since you asked ... I am not releasing them live. Because I know if I do that there's a good chance they'll just find their way back in. I had been trying to figure out how I would dispatch them. Then I noticed my Co2 pistol bb gun nozzle fits right through the little airholes in the trap. And the mice seem to like to sit right in front of the airholes. So one bb for each dispatches them quickly.

So all in all I think it's a toss up. Baiting and resetting the individual traps vs dispatching several in a larger trap and then cleaning out the trap. Damn they make a mess in there in a very short time. I put shelled peanuts inside my traps too.

A few years ago I caught *six* red squirrels in my basement within a couple days. They had chewed around the old wooden door. I also caught a possum down there, the thing (or something) ripped the screen right out of the basement window and crawled in I guess.

fpweeks said:

Try my redneck mouse trap.


Take a five gallon pail (an old one please!). Fill it one third full of water. Put a smear of eanut butter on the inside wall about 4" down from the top. Then provide the mice a nice ramp for them walk up so they can go swimming.

Click to expand...

I have a variation on this. We smear a soda/beer can with peanut butter, punch a hole in the center top and center bottom. Suspend it over the bucket with a rod used to hang insulation. This way the rodent crawls on the can to get the delicious peanut butter, then it twirls around dumping him into the bucket.

Rather than water, we use 2-3" of antifreeze. Kills them quickly and masks the smell.

So they are able to crawl across the rod to get to the can? I'm guessing they would be able to do that ... I might try that out using just some scrap steel rod.

It's easy enough to get rid if a mouse floating in a bucket of water.....and there are times I catch multiples.

I toss the water when there's a dead one in there....no smell....no mess. I guess if I didn't check it every day it might get rank.

Well that is perfect timing, I just changed the antifreeze on one of my cars last weekend so I have a big laundry jug of what I drained out to put in the bucket.

Haha ok this was a drunken rambling thread so here goes

MOUSE CATCHING CONTEST THIS WEEKEND!!! Who wants to have a contest to see who can catch the most mice in their basement, garage, etc, this weekend? Any kind of roden mole, vole, mice, rats, whatever, each counts as a point?

porcupine73 said:

So they are able to crawl across the rod to get to the can? I'm guessing they would be able to do that ... I might try that out using just some scrap steel rod.

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Yep. It's no wider than a wire coat hanger, though.

porcupine73 said:

Well that is perfect timing, I just changed the antifreeze on one of my cars last weekend so I have a big laundry jug of what I drained out to put in the bucket.

Haha ok this was a drunken rambling thread so here goes

MOUSE CATCHING CONTEST THIS WEEKEND!!! Who wants to have a contest to see who can catch the most mice in their basement, garage, etc, this weekend? Any kind of roden mole, vole, mice, rats, whatever, each counts as a point?

Click to expand...

We killed five in the first two nights. Only one since. I wonder if they have an internet of their own? "Don't go to that dude's house. The peanut butter is bad. We haven't seen Mickey in three days."

Haha yes I think they somehow do know if something is funny about the situation. I've heard people say if your trap stops producing to move it a few feet from where it was, since they get 'used to it' in one spot. This thing i had where the two were 'friendly with each other' ... and proceeded to rip the throat out of the third caught in the trap was a little weird. I'm actually having a little trouble dealing with that. But such it is I guess ...

Ok coat hanger width I can do, I have to score a beer can somewhere, I don't have one. I have some straight steel rod a bit larger dia than a coat hanger but I think it should work. I did set a trap bucket tonight, but it has just the 'ramp' and the PB smeared on the ramp and then down in the bucket with the oh-hopefully onlly = to tempting antifreeze down in there.

Before these dang things chew my electric up anymore and eventually set the house on fire. Actually I think only the squirrels have chewed at the wiring, through the outer sheath of the romex. But I don't think they can get in anywmore.

We had a mouse or rat that made its way into our heating ducts once...glue traps worked...we've had a few stray cats end up in the loft of our garage, in that instance we've used live catch traps and either took them to the local shelter or released them far away from our property. The one stray cat was in such bad condition, we had to put it out of its misery. But that was when I didn't like cats.

Toast some corn meal and mix it 50/50 with Portland Cement. Works as well as Decon and dogs and cats will not get poisoned from eating the dead mice.