Baiting a mouse trap

[Muse]

About 6 weeks ago I thought I'd solved the problem using a dozen traps I recently bought online. They are like the Victor spring traps that are widely used, but have the yellow plates with holes. I bought that dozen traps because I was having no luck with my 2 Victor mouse traps. So, ~6 weeks ago I had good luck using smooth organic peanut butter as bait. Eventually, no more traps were being hit, I saw no little mouse craps around, had no reason to think there were any more mice, PLUS I fixed where I think they were getting in the house!

But a couple weeks ago I started to suspect I still had a problem. A tiny crap here, a tiny crap there... could those be from before? I set some traps like before, but nothing was hit for a few days. Hmm. One day the answer came when a plastic bag in my kitchen was eaten through and a portion of a cracker was plainly eaten. I got more aggressive... 6 traps set about including where those crackers had been. That mouse hasn't reappeared AFAIK. I figure it must be around.

I'm thinking maybe this mouse is wise to my traps. Maybe it was here in the days when its brothers and sisters were hitting my traps and associated the smell of peanut butter with the onslaught on it's brethren. Is that reasonable?

What can I use instead of peanut butter? Cheese, right? Or is there a better way? A different trap? Any hints how to make sure mice can't get in? I know the house pretty well, but maybe I missed something. Or, maybe this is a survivor from when they had access to the space beneath the back stairs, which I sealed some 6 weeks ago.

 

[Zanovar]

Small piece of bread has always worked for me.

 

[kage69]

Get some old school tootsie roll candies. You can work them soft and pliable with your hand, and then when it's on the trap it will cool and harden, causing the rodent to have to use more force to get at it, which helps set off the trap. Maybe put a smear of peanut butter on top of it, peanut oils carry a ways, good lure. Crushed walnut is good to sprinkle on peanut butter, it's oily and fatty too.

Another tactic is to put out a big glass mixing bowl with about 3" of peanut oil in it. Put something next to it they can use as a ramp. They hop in and can't get out, too slippery.

Protip: when you put out traps it's really important to bait them but leave them unset for the first 2 or 3 periods. Once you've established a visiting schedule, then set the trap.

Doesn't matter if it's mice or Kodiaks, getting your target to relax increases your odds of success.

 

[Iron Woode]

About 6 weeks ago I thought I'd solved the problem using a dozen traps I recently bought online. They are like the Victor spring traps that are widely used, but have the yellow plates with holes. I bought that dozen traps because I was having no luck with my 2 Victor mouse traps. So, ~6 weeks ago I had good luck using smooth organic peanut butter as bait. Eventually, no more traps were being hit, I saw no little mouse craps around, had no reason to think there were any more mice, PLUS I fixed where I think they were getting in the house!

But a couple weeks ago I started to suspect I still had a problem. A tiny crap here, a tiny crap there... could those be from before? I set some traps like before, but nothing was hit for a few days. Hmm. One day the answer came when a plastic bag in my kitchen was eaten through and a portion of a cracker was plainly eaten. I got more aggressive... 6 traps set about including where those crackers had been. That mouse hasn't reappeared AFAIK. I figure it must be around.

I'm thinking maybe this mouse is wise to my traps. Maybe it was here in the days when its brothers and sisters were hitting my traps and associated the smell of peanut butter with the onslaught on it's brethren. Is that reasonable?

What can I use instead of peanut butter? Cheese, right? Or is there a better way? A different trap? Any hints how to make sure mice can't get in? I know the house pretty well, but maybe I missed something. Or, maybe this is a survivor from when the had access to the space beneath the back stairs, which I sealed some 6 weeks ago.

You never mentioned what you have done to prevent mice from getting into your place.

That is always the first step: secure the place

Then tackle the mice inside. Secure all food and garbage so as to make the traps the only food source. Traps that kill are the best. Live traps just make the problem someone else's.

 

[JEDIYoda]

I personally use one of these for mice problems --

 

[Muse]

You never mentioned what you have done to prevent mice from getting into your place.

That is always the first step: secure the place

Then tackle the mice inside. Secure all food and garbage so as to make the traps the only food source. Traps that kill are the best. Live traps just make the problem someone else's.

AFAIK, all food is secured, garbage too, at least inside (there's a compost pile outside, 30 feet or so from the house). Traps should be the only food source in the house. My traps kill, of course.

Under the back stairs there's a kind of semi-pantry/storage-area. In the back of it there is a largish hole that I blocked off years ago with wire mesh. That was, I believe, capable of keep out most animals (I actually went downstairs one night around 2AM and was face to face with a possum!). That mesh is enough to keep rats out but not mice, I realized a couple months ago. I looked around my property and found some aluminum sheet metal, which I cut to fit and stapled in place. There were small gaps, smaller than I think any mouse can get through, but I didn't want any gaps at all, partly for weather sealing during the cooler winter. So, I caulked all the gaps. So, I believe no rodents can get in, at least in that area of the house. I don't know of other places where they might have access.

Well, there is something upstairs that's open. I had a plumbing problem. I don't know that mice would find that, but I suppose I should close that off, at least temporarily with something.

 

[Muse]

I personally use one of these for mice problems --
View attachment 18487

Um, what the heck is that?

 

[JEDIYoda]

Thor`s hammer....I was adding some levity to your thread!! Personally in all seriousness I have found that those flat plastic things with sticky stuff in them work well to catch mice!!

 

[Muse]

Thor`s hammer....I was adding some levity to your thread!! Personally in all seriousness I have found that those flat plastic things with sticky stuff in them work well to catch nice!!

I don't play nice with mice!

 

[OccamsToothbrush]

I once had a smart mouse that avoided peanut butter, nutella and cheese. Got the sucker with a gummy bear. Any soft candy like that, chuckles, gum drops, Swedish Fish, etc, it turns out mice have a sweet tooth.

 

[Steltek]

Another bait to try with bread (or even with other baits) is to dab a bit of food grease on it. Mice are like people and will periodically change their diet depending upon what they need at any particular time. When they stop eating your baits, another thing to try like JEDIyoda said is glue traps (they cost more, but I use the large rat trap types as as they are harder to jump over and you can often catch more than one mouse in them) in areas where you think they might be traveling. Just be careful with them if you have pets as a glue-trapped cat or dog can be a nightmare to have to deal with as you can imagine.

Also, what type of foundation does your house have? Is it sitting on a slab, or does it have a block foundation wall with crawlspaces? If it has a foundation wall, make sure to check all the way around at the base of the wall and at any crawl space covers for gaps and to ensure the mice aren't burrowing under the wall or crawl space covers and into the crawlspaces. Check your outside facing doors to ensure your bottom door sweeps are good and have no gaps underneath. If you have siding, check the corner trims (especially for vinyl corner siding, which is like the London Tube for mice if it isn't blocked properly at the bottom) and also along the bottom edge of the siding where it meets the foundation or slab (if you have a spot that didn't include the proper bottom metal trim for vinyl siding or poorly installed siding like masonite allowing a gap at the bottom of the wall, the mice can slip through or eat through the bottom of the wall in a spot like that).

One final thing to check: mice can and will quickly climb straight up your outside walls or up a close tree to the roof. If you have roof vents, make sure they are all rodent proof or mice can just come in the attic through them.

And, once you finally get everything sealed up, you'll probably have to deal with a few small continuing infestations due to the mice born to the original ones.

 

[Muse]

This house is 110 years old. It has old fashioned stone and mortar foundation and right now it's impossible (well, I guess I might have a chance) to keep mice out of the crawl space (there's no basement). But I don't know that they can get from the crawl space into the house. Would surprise me. The crawl space itself is above dirt, no slabs.

The siding is shingles, probably cedar. No vinyl.

Hmm. Roof vents! I'll have to check on that. And yeah, the neighbor's trees are brushing up right against my walls. Damn two story apartment building next door and I don't know the owner, it's almost like slum housing. I have to ask them for the owner's phone number. She may not be willing to do anything about her trees, I've been intending to get up on my 2nd story roof with my electic pole saw and try to trim those trees back without falling two stories. I probably can't do enough and will have to engage a tree service. There's even a dead tree on their side of the property line that they need to remove. I mentioned it to their ESL once-in-a-while gardeners who said they'd take care of it (2-3 months ago) but nothing's been done. I should get that owner's number (I think she's the owner, not a manager) and explain my concerns I guess before complaining to the city.

 

[Steltek]

If you have good attic access, you can probably check the vents from inside the attic at the bottom.

You might try setting some glue traps in the crawl spaces to see if you catch anything (I'd use the foot long rat trap ones, and get enough to go all the way across the crawl space at the foundation exit cover - leave them in place a few days, then move them around). And, underneath the house where any pipes might come up through the walls, you might want to make sure the holes the pipes come up through are tightly sealed and don't have gaps to provide mice access inside those walls.

Mice can and will squeeze through smaller holes than you would think possible.

 

[OccamsToothbrush]

It's almost impossible to secure a house of any age against mice. They can squeeze through a hole the size of a dime, short of living in a bank vault they're going to get in if they want to. You can get some poison baits to scatter around the yard if they're really a problem, but ultimately a few will get in and you have to deal with them once they do.

 

[Iron Woode]

mouse infestations are a pain to get rid of. I ended up catching 50 mice over a 3 week period. Those suckers were annoying me to no end. My cat was too old to go chasing after them. She wanted to, though.

Make sure any pipes entering the house are sealed completely to stop any more from getting in. Always do an audit of your dwelling to ensure there's no sneaky way for them to get in.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm a master baiter, and what I use is ancient nutella. It's really tough, and sticks well to the bait pan. Similar to the tootsieroll suggestion above, which is what I'd use if I didn't have ancient nutella. The other option is feed feral cats so they stick around your house. I haven't seen a mouse the last two years I've been feeding cats.

 

[Iron Woode]

I'm a master baiter, and what I use is ancient nutella. It's really tough, and sticks well to the bait pan. Similar to the tootsieroll suggestion above, which is what I'd use if I didn't have ancient nutella. The other option is feed feral cats so they stick around your house. I haven't seen a mouse the last two years I've been feeding cats.

mice fear the scent of cats. When my cat was younger, we never had a mouse problem even though we lived in a rather rural part of town with fields and a creek nearby.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

mice fear the scent of cats. When my cat was younger, we never had a mouse problem even though we lived in a rather rural part of town with fields and a creek nearby.

Yeah per an exterminator when we had a small mouse infestation in the attic, we had one cat and one medium dog. Never saw mouse droppings in the house or basement. Not boxed food in the basement was chewed on.
Exterminator said mice avoid areas where dogs and especially cats go. Basement car box would likely be enough to keep mice out.
Weird fact the exterminator was an old guy and he predicted we had 6 mice. He sealed the house and I put out traps. I caught 6 mice.
I found peanut butter and crushed potato chips were the ultimate bait.
Also the old school snap traps are the only traps that caught mice. High tech funky traps caught zero mice.

 

[ElFenix]

What can I use instead of peanut butter?

mink:

 

[Captante]

I'm a master baiter

Tell us something we don't know!

 

[Number1]

Try this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYbru-MPO1xjes4FVn61JUQ

 

[Muse]

Jeez... well, I don't have gummy bears, any kind of Nutella (I've been eyeing that stuff for years and years but never buy... I have made DIY nutella with roasted hazelnuts and sugar, but not for years).

So, about an hour ago, I started thinking. I have a ton of Jelly Bellys that I bought years ago. Hardly ever touch them. So, I set 4 traps using them... pinching the beans some to soften and jamming into the plates of the snap traps. Worth a try.

I LOVE cats! But I don't want the responsibility of having pets. Food, shots, cleaning up, trips to the vet, and maybe more than anything having to worry about them if I leave the house for a few days or a week or two or three. I have quasi-relationships with a couple of neighbors, it could work, but there's the other stuff. And cat hair, fir balls - vomiting, bringing in dead animals, meowing .... I haven't had a pet since I lived with my parents, i.e. since I wasn't even full grown.

 

[snoopy7548]

Maybe try alcohol. Get the mice nice and drunk, then y'all can hang out, have a good time, and realize that they're not so bad after all, and that you might want to keep them around for some company on those lonely nights.

 

[Steltek]

[

mink:

The bad thing about minks is that they are truly vicious things that kill literally everything their size or smaller, including birds (and when they are grown), chickens, squirrels, rabbits, and even the neighborhood cats. Generally, if they can catch it, they will kill it just to be killing.

 

[shortylickens]

I had a ferret once.
He was fucking useless.
Probably make friends with the mice and maybe show them around the house.