Best Mouse Traps: Kids and Pet Safe Solution

Finding the best mouse trap will do you no good, unless you folllow a three step process. A while back, we bought a house that had been vacant for a year. I found lots of little brownish black specs in drawers, the top of the hung cabinets, in closets and in the pantry, there were even some in the bathtub; great mouse poop ! I never saw the little rodent squatters when I visited the house, but I went on a cleaning frenzy the day we closed our home purchase. Shortly after we moved in, in the wee hours in the morning, I began hearing sounds in the walls and in the ceiling when all was quiet. Ghosts? I wish! This mouse problem took me several months to solve and lead me on a search to find the best mouse trap.

•My first mistake: thinking that sanitizing my home would take care of my mouse problem.
•My second mistake: thinking that 5 very noisy kids would scare the mice away
•And third: Not researching the problem; I assumed a few mousetraps would catch the mice and that would be the end of it.

No, it's not a joke. At the time, I had never heard of IPM [Integrated Pest Management] or even thought of hiring an exterminator. After 3 months of loosing the mice battle, I begged our little farm stores' clerk to help me. He informed me that experts say you need two to three mouse traps for every mouse you have. How can one tell how many mice they have? And more importantly, experts recommned ruling out exactly which rodent is sharing your home with you. Rats!? That hadn't even entered my mind!

What really astonsihed me; I learned that one pair of mice can produce 4,500 mice in one year. Eek! That's an army. Mice can reproduce at an alarming rate, starting at just 5 weeks old, gestation period 19 days, and they can do this 6 to 8 times a year with 4 to 8 pups per litter. Pups, not a typo, that's what baby mice are called. I couldnt bear to think about how many mice were in the corridors of my walls. That could be a lot of mouse traps.

At the time, I knew it was one or the other; secretly, I prayed for the smallest rodent. Big rat traps scare me. I learned that most rats live outside in burrows they make in the ground, some even live on or near roofs, known as roof rats. Rats will come inside a structure if there is an invitation; a food or water source. Rats drink a lot of water everyday, whereas, mice get most their water from moisture in food, and can go for days with no fluids. Rats will travel over a hundred feet from their burrow to a food source; mice nests are about 35 feet from the nearest food source. After a through check, we decided it was just plain ole house mice traps would work.

Reading yahooanswers, I noticed people often ask how catch a mouse or what is the best mouse trap. I've discovered that answer lies not entirely in the best mouse trap, but in knowing the habits of the mouse they are trying to catch. Where do the live and what are they snacking on.

Did you know the smallest opening a mouse can squeeze through is a hole the size of a pencil eraser; the largest hole they need is the size a dime? A rat on the other hand can get his plump body through a one inch hole, roughly the size of a quarter. And while we are talking about money, rodent damage can cost plenty. Keep an eye out for small holes, those are the ones you will need to plug up.

Have you ever poured yourself a bowl of cereal only to notice it included a dead mouse? As you can imagine, it's quite nasty. That happened the morning after I set out mouse poison and traps. The mice outsmarted the snap traps, but stole the posion pellets; its sounded like a good idea.

Some mouse poisons dry up the rodents body fluids, so they go in search of a fluid souorce. Since mice need very little fluid, my guess is mousey was after the raisins in my granola cereal. While rodent poison does work, it has unintended consequences; make sure your pets and children do not handle or ingest mouse poison also called rodenticide. Rats and some field mice may go outside to find water or possibly, like my house mouse incident, will look for it within the 35 feet they know well.

Well into my second month of mom vs mice, I started noticing putrid odors that just appearred out of nowhere. Dead rotting mice between the walls cause rancid aromas for days or even weeks, depending on the climate and number of dead mice. Realistically, rodent removal from inside the wall, would involve a lot of work, finding an odor removal method that works would be better. Live bodies, rotting or dried up carcasses, breed parasites as well. The rodenticides are often injected into grains that mice bring into their nests; in your walls, closets, boxes and other places mice call home. Unfortunately, mouse poisons have no effect on the insects.

Some mouse hunters use snap traps as they are the most popular due to their price. The cheapest mousetraps are the old fashioned wood platform spring loaded mouse trap, While they do work, they are not the best mouse trap in my book. This basic model has evolved into a plastic version such as the Snap E trap, Tomcat Mouse Trap, Easy Set, and Eaton Jaws mouse traps, but most snap traps produce a violent messy death. I can't stomach the site of a dead bloody mouse. Worse yet, a mouse flipping around in a trap, not yet dead. Then what do you do? How does one euthanize the mouse? I've heard horrible solutions I couldn't imagine myself doing: hammer, drowning, garbage…things I really didnt want to contend with.

In my third month of the mice war, I caught my four year old playing with a mouse trap, that was enough snap mouse traps for me. They weren't really working as expected, and the possibility of kids getting into the posion pellets had me on edge from the start. I set out to hunt for a child safe mouse trap which hadn't been available at my local store and I came upon what's known as a humane mouse trap. Through different animal rights groups, I had learned that humane mouse traps were no kill traps.

However good intentioned I tried to be, I learned that humane traps have unintended consequences as well. Using a humane mouse trap has to be thought through to the end before you catch your mice. Since the point of a humane trap is to set the mice free, you need to how and where you will transport your wild mouse to it new relocated home.

How will you handle the mouse safely without touching it? Mice transmit over 35 diseases directly and indirectly.People with allergies can be very sensitve to mice hair, feces and urine; I read it can cause asthma attacks.
•What if the mice entered someones HVAC ducts and the rodent contaminates were recirculated in their home?
•What if it entered a food storage facility, a food silo, a barns' feed bins and infected the food supply?
•What if the mice gnawed on wires in someplace else and the house burnt down?
•How far away is considered a safe distance to keep the mice from re-entering my home, my neighbors home or any other building?
•Will the mice survive after living in my comfy cozy home after all that trouble?

Too many "what if's," in this mouse trap game. This humane trap idea was not as easy a resolution as I had thought. I'm not sure if I felt more guilty setting the mice free; free to cause damage, or just killing it in a trap and not having any of those worries.

Glue traps also known as glue boards or sticky traps, do not make the top of the list for humane traps. Glue boards pose the same problem as other traps when it comes to mice suffering a horrible death. These traps must be checked often and discarded intact with mice; if left for days it wil cause odors and possible insect infestations. Finding a mouse still alive, struggling to get free, missing one leg which is now stuck to the glue board is a scary sight for a toddler to see. My son requested we free the mouse; with vegetable oil in hand, I tried to free the mouse but wound up getting bit instead. This was worse than the Humane trap no matter how I looked at it. With the thought of 35 transmitted rodent diseases, I was off to the doctor.

The "other" humane mouse trap, or so it's claimed, is an electronic mouse trap . This mouse trap was and still is the answer to all my problems; it is child safe, pet safe, provided a quick clean death for the pest, easy to dispose of, no chance of finding a live body, no blood, no missing body parts, no poison involved, automatic shut off so you don't get zapped, and it is very simple to set up - unlike the touchy snap traps.

The electronic mouse trap is a bit more expensive than snap mouse traps , sticky glue boards , mouse cubes , enclosure traps, and other mouse contraptions, but it is well worth the money when it gets the job done effiiciently. I have tried 2 brands of electronic mouse traps, all similiar in construction, number of batteries and effectivness, however they do vary in price, some as high as $100, but those are mostly multiple kill mouse traps.

My favorite economical humane mouse trap are Victor M2524 or the Victor Pro M250; for larger areas, like our barn, we had great luck with the Victor M260 multi kill humane mouse trap.

Choose the best mouse trap for the environment in which you will use it, for example, we used the larger multi kill electronic mouse trap in our barn instead of the single electronic mouse trap as it drew in mice from the field. Try to think your mouse control strategy through to the end, so you will be successful the first time around. The mouse control method that you choose has to be one that you can accept, live with, and perform conistently.

I tried the no-kill mouse trap because I wanted to teach my children that even mice have rights, but after getting bit, and and ensuing lecture from my doctor, I now understand rodent health hazards to humans. Further research led me to horrifying situations regarding the property damage and fires rodents create by gnawing on wires in homes. It didn't stop there, gruesome articles about infant deaths caused by rodents, needless to say, I got my priorities straight. I had a pet mouse as a kid, so I have a soft spot for mice, nonetheless, wild rodents - however cute - are not pets, they are pests,

Along with the best mouse trap you discover , be sure to repair holes where the mice enter your building, sanitize any areas where you have found evidence of mice, and regularly inspect those areas; but as I have learned, you are never totally mouse proof.

And if you are battling with Pantry Moths left from Mr and Mrs. Mouse, this solution is an informative quick read which is sure to help you solve that problem.

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