Comment by Amezarak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Amezarak | Hacker News Reader

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I sometimes get mice in the house, and found snap traps to be totally ineffective. They worked at first, but when I had more than one mouse in the house, they seemed to learn to avoid them and even how to eat the bait without setting off the mechanism.

The most generally effective trap I have found is glue traps. They are an awful device but very effective. Unfortunately, you have to kill the trapped mice yourself. They have usually sustained serious injuries in an attempt to free themselves, so even if you wanted to free them, it's too late. They will also catch other pests (like insects), while being relatively safe for any larger animal - I wouldn't put one anywhere a cat, dog, or child could get into it, but if they did, liberal application of a solvent like rubbing alcohol will solve the problem.

One time that did not work either, and after seeing an HN post on the matter, I filled a pyrex mixing bowl with cooking oil. It turns out this is fairly effective too. The video posted showed that dozens of mice had climbed in - I only had one left, but it worked. They get in and they can't get out. If you want a nonlethal trap for some reason, this is a good choice, and it's easy to put together if you don't have time to run to the store for a glue or snap trap. Of course, if you would like it to be lethal, well, you have the same problem you have with glue traps: it's up to you to deliver a coup de grace.

I have actually wondered why people go with poison - as the article even mentions one of the reviewers complaining about, you end up with rotting mice/rats in inaccessible places.

I used to live in a rural area. As soon as it began to get cold the mice - and sometimes a few rats - would start their annual pilgrimage from the freezing, dangerous fields into the nice warm safe human houses.

I bought some live catch traps. The mice blocked the entrances.

Really. They collected all kinds of crap that was on the floor and pushed it into the entrance holes.

If I'd known about the cooking oil trick, I'd have used that instead.

There are better mouse traps than those sold at grocery stores.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082LP4VS1 - snap traps of this type are easier to set, and were more reliable at killing mice for me.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Authenzo-Humane-Mouse-Trap-Smart-... - live traps were also effective for me. You have to be strategic about where you put them. I kept a bucket of water on the porch and would dunk the whole trap with mouse inside to drown it. Less humane perhaps than snap traps, but better than glue or poison. If you rotate between kinds of trap week over week you can get pretty reliable results.

The people who go with poison are probably trying to get rid of rats on an industrial scale, in warehouses and such.

I find glue traps as inhumane, the mice get trapped and they die an agonizing slow death. Once trapped they cannot be detached from the glue bed without their skin being ripped off their bodies.

Usually when they were caught in the trap, I woke up to them squeaking or thrashing around within a few minutes to at most hours of them being caught and drowned them by placing the trap upside down in water.

I agree it is not a merciful way to go, but they do not make good houseguests and other methods proved ineffective.

Yah, I was horrified at that. Never used glue traps again.

> I sometimes get mice in the house, and found snap traps to be totally ineffective. They worked at first, but when I had more than one mouse in the house, they seemed to learn to avoid them and even how to eat the bait without setting off the mechanism

They work, you just have to give it time. Keep the peanut butter fresh and smear it all over the mechanism to increase the probability of them setting off the trap.

The daredevils will come back night after night and get bolder each time.

Also … the simple snap traps are sometimes badly calibrated.

As a poster further upthread alluded to, you can fix them. I bend the vertical plate a tiny bit so that there is a bit less “shelf” for the tension wire to rest on.

Be careful - you can take this too far and make it a hair trigger…

ALSO: I always mix a pinch of quinoa or tiny seeds into the peanut butter so it can’t be licked clean - they must bump and move it to get the peanut butter.

Also be sure to work the peanut butter into the inside of the curl of the plate. That'll set the trap off when they try to get that last bit out.

I didn't realize it at first, but the snap traps are diabolical in that if they go off when the mouse is licking there, the wire will catch them on the back of the neck, crushing it, which will kill the mice quickly and humanely.

I don't want to kill them. Once, there was one running across the counter. Quick action with an inverted glass caught the little bugger. I slide a card under the glass so I could pick it up, took it outside, and let him go a hundred yards away.

> They worked at first, but when I had more than one mouse in the house, they seemed to learn to avoid them

In my experience they never learn.

> and even how to eat the bait without setting off the mechanism.

That happens sometimes. I just bend the tab a bit so the trap becomes a hair trigger, when the slightest vibration will set it off.

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