What is happening??!!help

[NotEver0]

I am totally confused and hope someone can shed some light on what they think is happening here.after finding mice in my garage last year we had traps set up which worked effectively and since then have continued with traps.
Two days ago a mouse was caught and disposed of and as usual as bait I put a corner of biscuit in each trap and set them.Twice in the past two days the biscuit has gone but the traps have remained unsnapped!!how is this possible?The snaps are so sensitive that they snap instantly if touched so my question is how has a mouse managed to evade snapping the trap and getting the biscuits twice in two days???
For the life of me I cannot work out what's going on!

Could be tiny mice or shrews that are too light to set of the trap. I have had this problem with shrews in the house and they were so light they ate off 3 types of trap including in and out of humane traps with out setting them off. I know it sounds impossible but it is not.

Try poison.

A snap trap provides a quick death, so-called humane traps often provide a lingering death

Not always. A pest control person put one under the floorboards under our bath as there was rat activity there. It caught the back end of the rat only and the poor thing was screaming for ages and dragging itself and the trap around. Awful! I will never forget that and will never let anyone put them down again.

They are clearly suspending themselves over the traps, Mission Impossible style, to snaffle the biccies.

Sticking the biscuit pieces in place in a blob of peanut butter is what worked for us.

Please don't use "humane" traps. We did this, caught a mouse overnight which then proceeding to try and gnaw his way out cutting its face very badly on the plastic. It was horrific. Blood everywhere and husband had to euthanise him. It was horrific and far from humane.

A trap that kills instantly is far more humane. Don't use poison and definitely NOT the sticky traps which should be bloody illegal.

Peanut butter is your friend.

Yet to encounter a rodent that can resist it, yet to encounter a rodent that can remove it from a snap-trap without simultaneously removing themselves from the realm of the mortal in the process.

Perhaps they are very small mice? We had this problem in a rural property with the reusable traps and went back to the old-fashioned snap type.

Don’t use a glue trap, what if it’s a cat? There was a cat that needed emergency veterinary treatment because a glue trap was used. They are calling for a ban.

@Takebackthepower

Awful! They are very outdated! Please buy humane traps to catch them and release them, poor things!

Releasing a house mouse is crueller. They have a 'map' of their house and it's much more distressing for a house mouse to be put out in the cold miles away than a quick death. (At home we've used the Pringle tube trap and put them back outside because they were lost/cheeky field mouse who'd come into the garage to snaffle the birdseed.)

I was at university in Edinburgh where house mice a perennial problem in the Edwardian flats. With a lot of wire wool to block up holes and being very careful to leave no food where they could get it, we didn't have much of a problem with them, so I didn't use snap traps. If we'd been overrun I would have done though.

@DimidDavilby

Snap traps provide a quick death.

Dumping a house mouse in the middle of nowhere in winter provides a slow death from cold and starvation.

This. I HATE the thought of using a snap trap, rather than a humane one, but I agree with previous posters, that catching it 'humanely' and setting it 'free' is more cruel than just killing it quickly.

So... @Threekneerepeater and @NewYearNewLockdown I have to disagree with you. I hate killing anything, but humane mousetraps are not as good/nice as they make themselves out to be.

I do find it funny though @NotEver0 that your mice are outwitting you!

Are they doing any harm in there? We have a few living in our garage, and they are not hurting anything. They're smart like your mice, they have not been caught by our cats yet!

@Staffy1

A snap trap provides a quick death, so-called humane traps often provide a lingering death

Not always. A pest control person put one under the floorboards under our bath as there was rat activity there. It caught the back end of the rat only and the poor thing was screaming for ages and dragging itself and the trap around. Awful! I will never forget that and will never let anyone put them down again.

Why was the back end of the rat on there?

The rat would have it's nose/face/head on the trap going for the food, not its arse.

Definitely try peanut butter. We have had mice in every house we have lived in. Such a pain, try and work out where they are getting in and block it with wire wool. Mice can get through any holes the size of a pencil eraser or bigger

@Marmunia1975

People who use inhumane traps are utter scumbags. Would you lay out a trap for your baby?

Um ... probably not. Why?

@Sparklfairy this is my attitude now and I am an animal lover

I gave up with my dream releasing them so they can frolic in meadows with their little mouse friends after they destroyed the cabling in the boiler, wrecked our hardwood floors and tried to make a nest in our fabric sofa.

Mice are a real problem when they get out of hand. Got rid of about 3 in the "humane" traps but that's a drop in the ocean.

The only way we dealt with it in the end was using poison (not the most humane but traps were useless- one got its leg stuck and then bled/shat all over the dogs bed).

Snap traps do not always kill "humanely" either. If it gets the neck and is a clean kill then it's relatively humane and quick. But often, it snaps down on the back of the animal and leaves them to an agonising, drawn-out death.

Snap trap - as above
Humane trap - They can die terrified and / or die of hunger if not emptied quickly and especially in winter can end up with the mouse perishing slowly. Although often, they will quickly find somewhere else to go and in summer will eat bugs etc until they do. Probably back to the house they came from.
Cat - Usually a quick death but a terrifying chase until cornered and caught and possibly played with for a while with probably agonising internal injuries.
Poison - mouse slowly bleeds to death internally. Can be lethal to other animals and children if not used or stored properly. Cats can die from catching poisoned rodents.
Electric shock killer - have to admit, don't know much about them, seem like they might be a humane-ish answer but still, I'm guessing it's not instantaneous or painless.
Glue trap - just NO!

Do it if necessary, and sometimes it is, they can be an awful nuisance in the wrong place but accept that basically, there is no "humane" way to kill a mouse.

It’s getting colder out, so they are seeking out somewhere quiet, protected, warm & dry, plus you are luring them in with a biscuit.

Clear area of anything that might provide shelter or food, note that small animals will eat paper, straw etc as well as a dried bikinis.

Invest in quality snap traps for a very quick humane end.

Peanut butter in traps.
Creatures of habit, they run routine paths, so place traps where you see them & place objects to guide them to traps.
Borrow a cat, preferably a known mouser, to lodge in your garage for a few days & nights.

Dried bikinis...surfer mice.

Still at lot of people falling for the marketing schtick of so called 'humane traps' - total misnomer

Wonder how many "humane trap" advocates also have a cat?

It's probably Maurice and his Highly Educated Rodents.

There is nothing humane about trapping a living creature in a box without food or water for hours at a time and then taking it to a location where it can't return to its home. These so-called 'humane 'traps might ease the conscience of the people buying them but are much more cruel than an instant, painless death in a snap trap

It's a mouse FGS not a human being!

Sew bacon onto the trap.

When we had mice I was absolutely against any form of inhumane trap and didn't use them.

But the humane ones didn't work. The only thing that worked was getting a cat (we were getting one anyway, it wasn't just for the mice). I appreciate what above post said about the cat and terrifying chase etc which is an awful thought, and he has caught a few (although thankfully always dead so I hope he killed them quickly). The actual presence of a cat seems to act as a deterrent, he caught most of them in the first six months we had him, since then have been very few and far between, so I'm assuming he's simply scared them off.

Borrow a terrier, that will sort it out.
To those talking about inhumane ways, they are bloody rodents.

We find that snap traps catch mice but we get voles (shorter tail, faster) and they can get even sticky bait (we use peanut butter) off them
Humane traps seem to catch the voles but not the mice
So we end up with both types and check them all regularly
We regularly block holes and check for new holes but we live in a rural victorian villa with floor and wall voids so they have lots of space to run where we can't touch them. They mainly stick with outside but do come in whilst it's really cold, you can hear them skittering up the walls 🐭