If you’ve found yourself with a mouse infestation in your home, car, or workplace, start off by reminding yourself that the mice chose that to be their home because it’s a great place to live! Unfortunately, your house or apartment is so welcoming, that mice feel comfortable there. We’re here to help you with that problem by figuring out all of the different types of mouse traps and your options to get rid of mice.
You can always go ahead and call a professional pest control service to get the mice out of your house, but that can be pricey and you may not like how they go about getting rid of rodents. You can do your own pest control with a few traps and the right bait for just a few dollars instead.
The Dangers of Mice
Mice can be a nuisance once they enter your home. They not only go after your food but also leave their droppings all over the house. Mice can be carriers of lots of diseases such as:
- Lyme Disease
- The Rat-bite fever
- Hantavirus- a flu-like disease
- Typhus
- Plague
Well, the above list of diseases carried by mice is scary and you need to be careful if you see them nesting in your home. These rodents tend to look for a place where they can scavenge food and stay protected from predators. So, if you don’t offer them food that is easy to access by keeping things clean, you have a better chance at keeping them out of your home in the first place. If they’ve already found a way in and decided to set up a mouse nest in your home, it’s time to start setting traps for them.
Different Types of Mousetraps
If you have not been able to keep the mice population at your place down to zero, you need help! You can either call the exterminator or simply set up traps to lure the mice into them. It is honestly really easy to set up traps to catch mice quickly. Here is a list of different types of mouse traps you can use in order to sort out the mice problem at your place.
Snap Mouse Trap
These mouse traps are probably the most well-known types of mouse traps available. If you ever imagine a mousetrap, this is the first picture that will likely come to your mind as it has been displayed in the pop culture many times. These traps are some of the cheapest among different types of mouse traps and are normally used to take down a single mouse at a time.
Traditionally, the base of these traps is made of wood upon which a spring-loaded metal bar is mounted. This bar is triggered once the mouse lays its hands on the bait and a slingshot action causes it to be entrapped. The snap mouse traps are effective as they have an inbuilt pressure sensitive switch which causes the trap to activate when any movement is made.
More modern versions of these traps have been created using the same principles, but made of strong and more reusable materials like plastic. Rather than having to carefully balance bait on the trap, risking snapping your fingers, these usually come with a bait cup that you slide up from the bottom of the trap.
Although effective, these mouse traps are considered to be brutal. The mouse trapped with it can either die or be severely injured and suffer. Moreover, because of the sensitive pressure switch, you don’t want it to be lying around in a house with kids or curious pets.
Buy a snap mouse trap on Amazon:
Sticky Mouse Glue Trap / Glue Boards
This is the cheapest and simplest types of mouse traps. You can make one of these all by yourself, or pick up a pack of them online pretty cheap. They are not based on any mechanism; rather these traps use the simpler method of trapping a mouse. To steal a line from an infomercial, you basically just “set it and forget it.”
Setting up this kind of traps is super easy and you can/should use many at a time (which is easier because of the price tag). Such traps tend to work best indoors as external conditions at times help mice escape from being glued to the base. Bait is used to lure them into the trap where they get stuck to the base and cannot escape.
The glue trap is thought to be another inhumane mouse trap; because once the mouse is stuck it cannot search for food or water. Instead of instant death, the mouse will die slowly from starvation, suffocation, or sometimes from a heart attack while panicking. This also results in a putrid smell around the place when it has been a few days and you aren’t aware that there has been a mouse caught for a while.
Order glue mousetraps on Amazon
Electronic Mousetraps
These mouse traps are the most modern kinds of mouse traps. They are easy to use and just require some bait in them in order to lure the mouse inside. This is another death-inducing mousetrap, which kills the mouse with a powerful electric shock. Many of these traps are completely enclosed so you’ll never see the mouse inside. they often have a red light on them that means the trap is empty, but if that light turns green it means there is a dead mouse inside.
For some, these types of electric mouse traps are considered a more humane option, as the mouse is electrocuted and dies immediately rather than suffering. They are also designed in such a way as to prevent humans or pets from being shocked.
The major downside of using these types of mousetraps is that they are pretty expensive. If you have a large rodent problem, you’ll have to buy several of these expensive traps to get rid of your mouse colony.
Order an electric mousetrap on Amazon
Live-Catch Mouse Trap
These mouse traps are not too expensive and easy to use. With this trap, you can release the mouse back into the wild. Catch and release mouse traps are usually based on the ones used to catch mammals or bigger animals. A good mouse trap bait, like peanut butter or chocolate, is placed inside of it. The mouse enters the cage in search of food which triggers a switch that shuts a door on the trap. There is enough room that the mouse can comfortably move around and even stop to enjoy the bait you set up for them.
These are considered the most humane mouse traps as they catch the mice alive and inflict no harm. One downside of using these types of mouse traps is that you will have to interact with a live mouse. This whole live mouse interaction can be tough as the animal is stressed and wants to run away.
Order a live mouse trap on Amazon
Mouse Traps
Yes, we understand that mice are a nuisance and they must be dealt with as soon as possible. Now that you have seen different types of mouse traps, it is suggested that you should use traps that inflict no harm to these animals. By allowing them to return to their natural habitat, you can help protect this age-old rodent. Each of these traps is efficient and works well if you set the traps the right way with the best baits.
More Information about Getting Rid of Mice
candy jones says
https://disinpest.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Funny-mission-impossible-mouse-trap.jpg I used this image of the mouse dangling over the mousetrap as a prompt for students to write short stories about. We named him Cheester von Trap. I got permission from the editor of our small town newspaper to publish some of my students stories. I would like to head the article with the picture. Would that be possible?
mvg417 says
Ha that is a great writing prompt! Go for it. Do you want to just link back to my page? Please send the link when it is live. I’d love to see the stories that came out of it.