Mouse Traps
To understand how to use a mouse trap to catch mice, you have to understand why mice do what they do, and how they do it. Mice are nocturnal creatures that have poor eye sight. What they lack in sight, they make up for it with their keen sense of smell and sharp sense of hearing. This is important because you can utilize these facts to rid them from your home. Another thing to know about mice is that they are good jumpers, climbers, and swimmers, which is important to know in order to design effective traps that will properly contain your rodent friend. The other thing to know about mice is that they don’t tend to stray far from their nest. That means if you’re seeing a mouse, there is likely a nest nearby (whether it’s in your house or your neighbor’s is to be determined, but you can count on one thing – it’s nearby).
Now you know what capabilities the common house mouse has, so now you need to understand why they are in your home (or garage or car or wherever they are). Mice are looking for two things really: food and shelter. Their sole motivation is survival (and reproduction of course, but that’s another story). They are in your home because it provides two things for them – food and shelter. To get rid of mice, you need to eliminate those two things from them. Take away their food source by ensuring that all your food is secured tightly in air tight containers. It’s important for them to be air tight because you don’t want the scent to attract them, even if they can’t get into it. One of the easiest food sources for a mouse is bagged pet food that is and just left on the ground, whether it’s in the garage or in a pantry – mice can easily gnaw through paper and cardboard. They’ll literally tear it to shreds and use it to build their nests – it’s a two for one deal, food and shelter!
So once you have the food sealed, you need to take away their shelter. Now your house provides shelter for you too, so you can’t just bulldoze it to get rid of the mice (well, you could, but that wouldn’t help you much, now would it?). You can’t eliminate the shelter completely because your house is huge for what a mice needs, but what you can do is make the place inhospitable. That’s where mouse traps come in, and it’s the basis for this article.
So hopefully you’ve stuck with me this far. I know it was a long introduction for what you’re hoping to be a quick solution. You don’t get rid of mice over night though (unless you only have one and you’re lucky to catch him on the first night). Usually where there’s one, there’s more though, so you’d have to be really lucky to get rid of your mice problem over night. 🙂 So the point of this website isn’t just to tell you about mouse traps though, it’s about finding mouse traps that work for you. So what are your choices?
I’m going to touch on them briefly here, but the rest of this site will go on about them in detail. What I’m trying to do with this site is help you to determine what trap is best for you. Most of them work in some capacity. It’s a matter of finding what works best for you and what meets your pest control needs. I encourage you to read through the different sections of this site to find out what type of trap will best suit your needs.
The types of traps that you will have to choose from range from low tech to high tech… some are economical, and some on the expensive end. My goal is to find you an economical solution that will solve your mouse problems. It depends on what your requirements are. Most traps can fall into 4 categories: snap traps, electronic mouse traps, humane (live catch) mouse traps, glue traps.
Snap traps are the kind that have been popularized by the movie and TV industry. They are the type you see in cartoons like Tom and Jerry. They feature a spring loaded mechanism that snaps a bar when a trigger is tripped. The bar works by snapping the mouse’s neck and killing it instantly.
Electronic mouse traps use technology to kill mice. They tend to be battery operated and administer an electric shock so powerful that it kills mice nearly instantaneously. They generally have some sort of protection to prevent accidental shock of you or other small children and pets.
Sticky mouse traps, or glue traps, work by having an adhesive so strong that when the mouse sticks itself it cannot be freed. It’s usually set with some sort of bait that attracts the mouse on the sticky pad. Once stuck, the mouse is unable to free itself from the trap. You simply pick up the trap and toss it out.
Humane mouse traps are the final type you’re likely to encounter. They are also called live catch mouse traps because this type of trap does not actually kill the mouse. A bait is used to lure the mouse through a one way trap door into a compartment. The mouse does not die by entering this compartment. You are supposed to check the trap regularly and when a mouse is caught, you can drive it to a distant location to free it back into the wild.
These are the types of traps that are most commonly used to get rid of mice. There are other techniques to prevent mice from entering your home that I will discuss at a later time, but for now we’re going to focus on the problem you have on hand. My guess is that if you’re searching for mouse traps or how to get rid of mice, you probably already have them in your home. Once I teach you the techniques to eliminate mice from your house, I will teach you how to prevent them.
Hopefully once you’re done reading the articles on my site, you can implement the techniques I am trying to teach, and you’ll be mouse free once and for all. As always, I encourage you to leave any questions you may have in the comments and I (or one of my readers) will provide you with the advice you need to get rid of mice from your home.
Tags: electronic mouse traps, eliminate mice, get rid of mice, glue traps, humane mouse traps, mouse traps, snap traps
