Do humane mousetraps actually work?

[maddiemo]

A Field mouse has come in from the garden and taken up residence behind the units in my living room. Have bought two humane traps to place at either end of the units. So far the mouse has had a tasty meal of chocolate and sugar puffs. The trap however has not closed and I suspect would need a mouse weighing as much as an elephant to operate.
Any suggestions. Am dreading having to use an inhumane trap, but cannot bear the thought the mouse having the run of the house at night and mouse wee everywhere. Have two cats but they are ancient and probably brought it in in the first place.

Had a similar problem - disposed of about 50 mice in all - am sorry to say that the inhumane traps are tonnes more effective - is it that you dont want to kill it or that you are worried about the disposal afterward? You should act quickly because people told me that mice usually come in pairs and they do breed very quickly - are you sure it is just one mouse???

We used a humane one (from Homebase I think) which caught a fieldmouse successfully. We used a smear of peanut butter as bait - so it had to get right down the end of the trap to get at it.

Dh drove to the heath (10 minutes up the road) and let it out there rather than let it out in the field at the bottom of our garden. We'd heard they tend to come back otherwise.

Also - how did it get in? Have you blocked its way in because other mice can get the scent of where a mouse has been and follow suit. Sorry to worry you but mice can get in through a hole the diameter of a bic pen.

Eeek! At the moment I think it is just the one. Suspect we have a nest of them in a pile of logs in the garden as I found a dead one there two weeks ago. I think dh and ds1&2 will be on log depiling duty tonight

I don't like the thought of killing it. However Tessiebear the thought of fifty mice on the loose is much worse.

How close to your house is the logpile?? The problem at our house happened when we disturbed a nest in the garden whilst laying a new patio - they then wanted a new nest and somehow managed to find their way into the garage and under the door that came from the garage to our kitchen. It took months to totally shift them - we also had to resort to putting poison down

I think the cats may have bought it in. If not it probably climbed through the broken cat flap.

fruitful, if I catch it alive I will make sure I take it up to the common.

Just off to let the boys know that they will be moving log pile in the rain tonight.

The log pile is against the side of the house next to the back door and broken cat flap.

I probably have a houseful

Dont move logpile until you have mended catflap - because once u have moved the logpile they will want somewhere to go!

Thanks Tessiebear, looks like I will need to buy new cat flap and trap tommorrow.

Dont mean to freak you out but if i was you i would keep bedroom doors shut - a mouse once got in my sons cot!

We caught a load of mice that had come in, using humane traps and peanut butter. They seemed pretty effective, and the mice didn't come back.

They work- I have caught literally hundreds of mice using humane traps. You need to place them right against the wall as that's where mice run- no gap at all between the trap and the skirting board.

Peanut butter is a good bait- add some nice bedding a bit of veg for water and you should have a happy mouse tomorrow morning.

We caught one. DP took it to a local park and let it go, presumably with cries of Run Free Little Brother Run Free.

Now we've got a cat.

They are humane to poor DH's whose DWs insist they deal with the mouse - letting a live mouse go is nicer than dealing with a squished one!

No sign of mouse this morning. Going out to buy new cat flap and peanut butter. Left cats shut in living room overnight but they would struggle to catch anything faster than a snail.

Haven't read all of this ? we have had quite a bit of success with humane mousetraps (from local DIY store) - chocolate seems to work best as bait for us. DS loved coming down in the morning to see whether we'd caught anything, then trips down to the local park to set them free.

We caught a mouse with one the first night it was put out.