Topic: What's your favorite mouse-catcher (not cats...)

[HondaMan]

I'm HIGHLY allergic to cats (migraine in 10 minutes), so they aren't under consideration...

We've been trying to 'get' a mouse that's happily enjoying the warmth inside of my house during this winter weather.
In the garage they usually succumb to mousetraps with peanut butter or those D-Con blocks. This one seems to have a red cape with an "S" on it, eluding all our normal traps - and the dogs who just watch it go.

It just spooked my wife, so we have to 'get serious' about it...
What good ideas do YOU have for nabbing these furry mess-makers?

[Gurp]

I've seen a bucket style trap that seems to work really well.
I use glue traps when my cats have a hard time. Behind the fridge and places I don't have to unstick the cars from. ( it's more fun than bathing them)....

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[CycleRanger]

I use Tom Cat poison blocks out in the workshop.
They work!

I had a mouse in my garage a few months back.
I set an old-fashioned Victor snap trap with piece of cheese and had it caught about 20 minutes later.
Sounds like your mouse is a smart one if it won't fall for the snap trap.
As suggested a bucket trap might be good option.

[jgger]

I have always had my best luck with peanut butter.  If that doesn't get them I have used cheese as a backup for bait. You need to really smash it into the bait holder or tie it with some fishing line.

They do like to travel along ledges or right next to the wall. Cabinet toe kick spaces are another favorite road too. I usually set my traps in twos. If you have a smart mouse they can trip one trap then snag the bait. So I put 2 of them about 2 or 3 inches apart with the death end facing each other. When they jump back from the 1st trap they set off the second one and it's curtains. You can also use some double sided tape and put the trap up and down about an inch off the floor with the business end down and the cocked end up. That way they have to stand on their hind legs and reach for the bait and can't jump back as fast.

If the peanut butter ot cheese doesn't work then try a piece of carrot or fruit like apple.

Or you can do like my old boss and all the foreman did, we hunted them in the office with a 22 rifle with BB caps! I don't remember if we ever got any like that, but it sure was fun shooting up the office!

[scottly]

I've had the best results with the good old Victor traps, fine-tuned to a hair trigger, using a piece of a peanut jammed into the bait holder. They just lick peanut butter away without setting off the trap, but they have to work harder to get the solid peanut.

[dave500]

ive placed 3 or 4 traps in a tight circle so if one trips of and they freak and back pedal they go into another trap,thats #$%*ed up a few which were setting off traps without getting caught.

[Tracksnblades1]

Brown bread with white sugar kneaded in well.
Jamb press into the bait holder. It will dry in the holder
requiring the Mickeys and Minnies to use some effort..
Catches several in the barn before having to rebait…
I prefer the mouse poison now that our pets both crossed
The rainbow bridge..

[Kelly E]

I have a trusty pest guy that I've been using for over 20 years. He comes every 2 months and rebaits the traps and bait boxes. He uses peanut butter in the traps and poison blocks inside the bait boxes. Even though we have a dozen ducks and store feed in the garage we don't have a problem.
The last time we had an issue was when they tore down and rebuilt the barns at the chicken farm at the bottom of the hill. We had some big ass clean looking rats show up that summer. My pest guy got it taken care of.

[Alan F.]

We've had good luck with these catch alive traps baited with a piece of cooked bacon, it's a waste of bacon but what can you say. Once caught I just throw the whole trap in a bucket of water for a while then empty the trap later in the corner of the yard.

This Pic has 3 we caught with a Sugar Daddy candy.

[Kevin D]

The yellow paddle trigger works better, but not longer, than the standard metal trigger.
Pepita seeds work pretty good for me with PB.
I put sticks around the trap so the critter doesn’t have good footing for his escape leap.

[HondaMan]

These are some cool ideas! I especially like the .22 version, but my wife frowns on shooting in the house...
I just added some of those 'sticky' traps, next to the mousetraps. Hoping for the next time it trips the trap and jumps back, it might land in it?

I just went into another room where we heard chewing on something it 3 days ago (storeroom piled high with boxes of stuff everywhere) and discovered the new trap I put there last night is gone(!). I don't know if it is stuck to the mouse, or...?

Last night the miniature poodle went for the peanut butter in the trap by the dining table, never saw her go under the furniture like that before. The trap snapped and we discovered that poodles can fly!

The adventure continues...

[grcamna2]

These are some cool ideas! I especially like the .22 version, but my wife frowns on shooting in the house...
I just added some of those 'sticky' traps, next to the mousetraps. Hoping for the next time it trips the trap and jumps back, it might land in it?

I just went into another room where we heard chewing on something it 3 days ago (storeroom piled high with boxes of stuff everywhere) and discovered the new trap I put there last night is gone(!). I don't know if it is stuck to the mouse, or...?

Last night the miniature poodle went for the peanut butter in the trap by the dining table, never saw her go under the furniture like that before. The trap snapped and we discovered that poodles can fly!

The adventure continues...

lol 

[newday777]

Wow now we have flying poodles! 😅
I love it Mark.

[HondaMan]

My house is full of animal adventures, it seems.

We are dog-sitting a neighbor's terrier-[something] mix little dog, and he is SURE there is SOMETHING in the back bedroom - where my mousetrap vanished yesterday. Trouble is, I can speak Bischon, Shih-Tzu and Poodle, but I don't understand nor speak Terrier-mix very well...

[jgger]

Is this the Colorado version of caddy shack?

If the trap is gone you may have something bigger than a mouse, I hope not. My larger traps for rats or gophers are always anchord with a string or some wire.

I did "train" my neighbor's dog to leave my outside cat food alone once. Put the bowl of cat food on the porch like always and kept the cats inside that night. The dog would always steal the bowl  and eat the food, so I put the gopher trap in the bowl with the food. The next morning the bowl and trap were gone. Set it up the next night and it was untouched the next morning, and he never bothered it again! So now your flying poodle is probably scared of peanut butter for the rest of its life!

[scottly]

A co-worker in Apple Valley had a problem with a neighborhood dog getting into his trash can when he set it out for pick-up, until he put a bunch of beaver-tail cactus spines on top of the trash. He woke up to a loud yelping in the middle of the night, and never had a problem with his trash again.

[HondaMan]

Is this the Colorado version of caddy shack?

If the trap is gone you may have something bigger than a mouse, I hope not. My larger traps for rats or gophers are always anchord with a string or some wire.

I'd forgotten that movie, but yeah - it's getting close to it!
We've seen this mouse twice: it's a little bigger than the ones in the garage. It's body is almost as long as the traps I have set out.
 
There was a creek in my back yard before they built this subdivision, and they re-routed the creek to be 3 houses west of me and across the street (plus another 60 feet or so) to the south, so we've always suffered "creek rats" along with snakes, muskrats (those are friendly, though), 'possums and sometimes skunks. A pellet gun works well on the rats, which are about 8" to 10" long in body. The mice come and go with the seasons: in cold weather they move into my garage so I can kill them each year. This one got into the kitchen when the cold snap in early January froze and broke the doggie-door's urethane flap: it made it so stiff that the dogs' opening it caused it to crack and then sit partway open. The mice make it up onto the deck pretty often (chasing birdseed leftovers, mostly) and the dog traffic tends to chase them off: this one probably came in during those real cold nights when it went way below zero in that freeze and snow.

At least, I hope it's just one? I have to go get more traps tomorrow.

[newday777]

Is this the Colorado version of caddy shack?

If the trap is gone you may have something bigger than a mouse, I hope not. My larger traps for rats or gophers are always anchord with a string or some wire.

I did "train" my neighbor's dog to leave my outside cat food alone once. Put the bowl of cat food on the porch like always and kept the cats inside that night. The dog would always steal the bowl  and eat the food, so I put the gopher trap in the bowl with the food. The next morning the bowl and trap were gone. Set it up the next night and it was untouched the next morning, and he never bothered it again! So now your flying poodle is probably scared of peanut butter for the rest of its life!

😅😅😅
Thanks for the laugh 😃

[Tracksnblades1]

If the trap is gone you may have something bigger than a mouse, I hope not. My larger traps for rats or gophers are always anchord with a string or some wire.

Thought the same thing when I read it too…
Just didn’t want to swing the spotlight around….🤫

[Stev-o]

I was wiping down the car a couple months back and left a small bucket in the shop, it was half filled with water.  Came back next week and there were 2 dead mice in it.  We hadnt had much rain and I guess they were attracted to the water.

Cats work the best, I never see mice around my house. But, just last week, the wife let her cat in and a few min later she yelled at me "somethings in the house"!!  The cat was nearby, he bought in his "provision" for us. The mouse was half dead, I picked it up and threw it out the back door.

[HondaMan]

I was wiping down the car a couple months back and left a small bucket in the shop, it was half filled with water.  Came back next week and there were 2 dead mice in it.  We hadnt had much rain and I guess they were attracted to the water.

Cats work the best, I never see mice around my house. But, just last week, the wife let her cat in and a few min later she yelled at me "somethings in the house"!!  The cat was nearby, he bought in his "provision" for us. The mouse was half dead, I picked it up and threw it out the back door.

Yeah, my mom used to have a cat like that: it would bring crippled or already-dead mice to her and lay them at her feet when she was sitting at her breakfast table. It was sort of like it was worshipping its deity (mom) or showing her what it was doing that night: it would then pick them up and take them somewhere else (or eat them).

Then one cold Fall AM mom went out to start her car and heard a "terrible noise" when the engine started. She shut it off immediately, then opened the hood of her 1967 Dodge Polara (383 engine!) to find cat fur everywhere and a bleeding cat sitting next to the engine, by the power steering pump. Apparently it used to sleep on top of her engine during the night after she came home from work, and was still there that next AM. It cost her a fortune at the vet to get the cat patched up, but it stopped bringing her mice for breakfast after that.

[Tim2005]

As above, peanuts are good, and I've had great success with a piece of chocolate. Wear rubber gloves when setting the trap, I think they can smell your hands otherwise

[HondaMan]

As above, peanuts are good, and I've had great success with a piece of chocolate. Wear rubber gloves when setting the trap, I think they can smell your hands otherwise

I think you are right about the hand scent: after I re-baited the one in the kitchen with bare hands (had gloves on the first time) it never tripped it again. He cleaned it once and cleaned-and-tripped it a second time, the 3rd time (without gloves that time) it's not been touched nor moved. My wife won't share her chocolate, though...

We caught one! I put out a pair of those 'sticky traps' next to the regular traps. Last light I heard some small thumping sounds in the front bedroom (it's really our 'storeroom' for everything) about midnight, but had just finished assembling the 750K5 into the frame and was too tired to go check the traps. Today I found a mouse stuck to the sticky pad next to the trap, almost dead, probably from struggling all night? I added it to the one that also got nabbed in the garage trap last night, busy night!

So now, we'll see if there are/were more than one in the house? They are ALWAYS in the garage, but there isn't a way from there into the house, I fixed that years ago.

I use glue traps when my cats have a hard time.

Thanks for the sticky hint, Gurp! I'm sold on those, going out to get some for the garage tomorrow. I've used the big, flat ones for bugs for years, but they never turned up a mouse, I don't think they are sticky enough to hold them?

[Gurp]

It's not that they aren't sticky enough. Oftentimes a mouse or a rat will chew their leg off if that's what's stuck on them but if you get two in a row usually they'll get hung even worse on the second one being a limb down.

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[HondaMan]

Oftentimes a mouse or a rat will chew their leg off if that's what's stuck on them but if you get two in a row usually they'll get hung even worse on the second one being a limb down.

Yeow! That's serious escape maneuvering!
Maybe the .22 approach isn't unwarranted?
The one I caught yesterday is about the size of the bull on my favorite 25-yard targets.