Choosing the Appropriate Mouse Trap For Your Home

by DoItYourself Staff

When a mouse invades your home you immediately have to go on the offensive. Where these is one mouse there can potentially be a dozen or, in extreme cases, several dozen. The size of your home as well as the size of the infestation has a lot to do with the type of mouse trap you will be using. Other factors such as pets and children will also help you decide which traps are best suited for your needs. This article will point out the trap styles on the market and what they are best suited for.

Snap Mouse Trap

This style of trap was invented over 100 years ago. It outsells all other traps by leaps and bounds because it is not only effective but cheap. The snap mouse trap is made of wood and metal. It is highly reliable once you get it set. They are designed to snap the neck of the rodent in one swift motion. The snap mouse trap has gone through a few changes and now exists in three styles:

Wooden
Easy-set plastic
Quick-set clam-shell

All of these traps are fairly cheap and easy to work. They can be used multiple times if you want to remove the mouse but these traps are usually just used one time because they are easy to dispose of. The traps have to be manually set and baited. If you have a house full of pets or children, these traps should be placed with great caution as to not hurt anyone by accident. The use of these traps is meant more for the home that has a very small problem with rodents.

Electronic Mouse Traps

The electronic traps are fairly new to the market. These traps kill the rodent via electrocution through a high voltage shock. For this reason they are not recommended in home with small pets or small children. Electronic mouse traps are inexpensive, easily set up and can kill up to 150 mice on one set of batteries. You still have to bait the trap but once it is baited you just have to flip the switch. There are no windows in them so you do not have to look at the rodent as you dispose of it. As with other traps you can have more than one set out at any given time. These are exceptional for a house or apartment.

Multiple Catch

If you have a larger mouse problem and want a no-kill way to remove the mice then a multiple trap catch system may be for you. Depending on the trap they can hold up to 30 mice. The cost varies depending on the size of the trap.

Glue Traps

Commonly used to deal with young mice and minor infestations, glue traps are cheap and easy to use, but caution should be used with children and pets. Just place the trap along a wall and wait until a mouse gets trapped. You basically have to throw away the trap with a live mouse still attached to the glue.