Mouse traps - help!

[castlesintheair]

I've had 2 of the 'humane' big cheese mouse traps in situ for 48 hours now - cheese gone and traps shut or open but no mice inside. Help! What is the best thing to use? Also any other mouse-catching tips please.

Does it have to be non-lethal?

We had a lot of trouble with mice in our garage this winter - smelly and quite destructive. So after we'd spring cleaned it DH put in a couple of poison baitboxes and a couple of oldfashioned traps. The latter caught one mouse at 6pm the evening it was installed - it was obviously quick. No more sign since.

The mice down the bottom of the garden who make holes to collect spilled birdseed are welcome to stay though!

I'm having the same problem! I've installed the big cheese ultrasonic plug ins so I'll let you know what they're like if you like? I found a dead one the other week in the washing and have just found out I'm pg with #2 so I dont want to be handling poison and dead mice with DS about too.
Peanut butter and chocolate are meant to be good as bait.

Thanks. I was going down the non-lethal route but am changing my mind! Don't fancy poison much as have a 3 year old but think I will try the traps. Or glue trap? Anyone used those successfully? Good luck Bellared - the ultrasonic thing is my next option.
It's me v the mice. Arrgh!

Oh - go for the lethal one. We had one in the attic recently, caught it in the old-fashioned type of trap and it looked like it died very quickly and (I hope) painlessly.

Metal traps very quick, painless etc. put beside a wall, side of cupboard. Bait with peanut butter/choc/nutella

• not the plastic ones, one mouse managed to drag a plastic trap off attached to its leg

Humane traps an expensive waste of time as imo are the annoying noise things (rodents live in tube tunnels, electricity sub stations near lots of high frequency electrical stuff)

Emptying the trap the first time is the worst, check every morning, then it gets easier till your almost disappointed if there's nothing there.

Sorry, mice don't travel in ones, keep setting the traps.

Since mice & rats will always be a problem round here I've taught my kids never to eat blue food. So stay away with your fancy blue smarties

Should have been
Sorry for long post, have a lot of experience with damm rodents, my neighbour keeps chickens and has a big compost heap but has never seen one at all so we have to deal with a fresh wave moving into the area every year.

Bobdog, what a mare. Through the dead ones back over their side. I do have a baseball bat and will use it if I see one.

Stupid pesky mice.

Our attic has been inundated lately as our new neighbours took down an old shed that was at the bottom of their garden.

We tried the humane traps but the crafty little gets learnt how to get the food out

So we have had to put down snappy traps & we have caught about 10 now.

I have never caught ANYTHING in a humane trap - the little buggers get in, take the bait, then lift up the lid and run away.

Not a big fan of poison - it means the mice can die anywhere and if you cant get to them(in between floorboards, in walls, etc) you are left with a smelly, rotting carcass that cant be moved.

Good quality snap-traps are your best bet - I recommend the Rentokil ones. They are fairly humane as death is instantaneous.

Glue traps are just gross.

Little nipper oness i find harder to set but seem to catch them.

Plastic ones ive caught a few with and are easy to set but they have now managed to get bait out and not set trap off many times. Clever mice.

Poison we have done before but the mice go off somewhere to die and then stink. Not nice. Esp if in the cavity of your walls.

Humane ones, well its releasing them that is the hassle, apparently must be about 3 miles away and over water or they just come straight back in.

Plug in things ive had limited success with but i plug them in if we are away from home and think it helps a little. Got one for each room.

I do feel sorry for them sometimes but they have shit everywhere when we were away over winter first year in this house and it really upset me. Was in kids beds and everything. Gross.

Last straw was them eating a 50p size whole in my sofa. If they just came in for a heat and a few crumbs fair enough but you have to draw the line somewhere.

Good luck.

Ah OP we have the same problem at the moment - came home from a few lovely days away to see that the mice had been having a little poo party all over the kitchen - absolutely disgusting. (BTW, just to clarify, my kitchen is very tidy.. they were going into cupboards and all sorts to seek out any food, sugar etc) We have got some traps and were told that cheese is in fact useless, but peanut butter works a treat - we set them last night so I'll let you know how we get on but I think the main idea is that they can lift off the cheese but have to lick the butter, hence more time for the trap to snap!

I've been away for easter and didn't have time to buy new snap traps but did block up all visible holes in kitchen There is no fresh evidence so wonder if that is working, although it could pong a bit after reading about results of poisoning.

Thanks for all the advice. Good luck to everyone else. Glad to know it's not just me! It has made me quite neurotic about cleaning which probably isn't a bad thing ...

I'm going away again tomorrow but will check back in next week.

We had mice a few years ago after we came back from a 3 week holiday. I have tried all sorts of traps and sorry, but in my experience, the best were the glue traps. I have to get rid of them somehow as I have 2 young toddlers and couldn't risk using poison or the metal traps.

I spent £24 and bought 72 banana and peanut butter flavor glue pads from Ebay from the USA and they were brillant. The banana ones were the best. As they were so big, I cut them in half to use, after a week, we seemed to have caught about 9, then no more. Thank God. A few weeks later, to make sure there were no more, I bought the sonic plugs for every room and since then, I have not seen any more droppings.

I would recommend the glue pads to anyone. I know its not nice for the mice but I just cannot cope with these little buggers in the house expecially in the kitchen or crawling all over the childrens toys.

Set the little nipper snap traps last night (just got back from being away) and the little sods ate the bait and didn't get snapped [anger] Advice please! Am going mad!!