Proper trap baiting and placement are essential to successfully eliminating mice from your home. Follow these tips and techniques to get rid of the rodents as efficiently as possible.
The Best Ways to Trap Mice
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Set Lots of Mouse Traps
Anywhere you see mouse droppings is a primo place to set mouse traps. And the more traps you set, the more mice you’ll catch—period. “The best thing to do is place your traps along the pathways that mice frequent the most in your home,” advises Pearson. “If you constantly see them scurrying along the same wall or in the same area, those places are your best bet for successful trap placement.”
So don’t think you’ll place a few traps around the house and take care of your mouse problem. Begin your mouse safari by concentrating on the worst room—the kitchen. Before going to bed every night (they only come out at night), bait and set at least six traps.
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Peanut Butter is the Best Mouse Trap Bait
Many baits work well, but as Pearson says: “One of the most effective foods to use as bait for your mouse trap is a small bit of peanut butter.” Our household concurs, so we always have a jar on hand dedicated for trap baiting. (By the way, cheese is one of the least effective baits.)
Here’s a tip:Â Mark the top of the peanut butter bait jar and let your family know what it’s for. Think about it: You’re baiting the mouse traps with peanut butter and then in the morning you might be spreading your toast with contaminated peanut butter.
Use plastic knives and throw them away when you’re through re-baiting and resetting mouse traps. Better yet, keep the bait jar out of the kitchen altogether.
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Pet Food is a Problem and an Opportunity
We have a cat that is supremely uninterested in mice, but we found a cache of cat food under the cushions of the couch. We were amazed that three-inch animals hauled those food nuggets 50 feet total to stash them away. So we set a live traps next to the cat dish, and caught several mice.
Dogs love peanut butter just as much as mice do, so if you use snap traps and don’t want Rex to get his tongue caught one, let him sleep in your bedroom and keep the door closed. Or just go ahead and use live traps, like we do. However you handle it, near Rex’s dish is an excellent place to put mouse traps.
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Look for the Pathways
A mouse is like Tarzan when it comes to climbing. In fact, a mouse can jump up to eight inches and climb up electrical cords to get to other places. So if you find droppings in high places, look low. That’s one of the best places to trap mice.
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How to Catch a Mouse Under Cabinets
The spaces under cabinets are like a freeway for mice. Pull out your bottom drawers and look for droppings. Put traps down there on the floor, replace the drawers and check them every morning.
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Look for Wall Penetrations
Mice love to live inside walls where they’re safe and warm. Look around to see where plumbing pipes or anything else penetrates drywall or plaster. That’s where they’ll come in at night to feed, so put traps just below those spots.
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Look for Feeding Areas
There are plenty of other sources of mouse food besides pet dishes. For example, our stovetop isn’t as clean as it could be, so we’ve found mouse scat there. We put some traps nearby and caught five mice on the countertop and the floor around the stove.
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Keep ’em Out!
When the temperature starts dropping, mice are looking for a warm, dry place with food and good nesting conditions. In other words, they want to live inside your house. They enter through the smallest imaginable holes and cracks; young ones can worm their way through a quarter-inch opening.
Take a very close look around the outside of your house, and then caulk, plug or do whatever it takes to close every entry point you can find. Pearson recommends going as far as hiring a pro to do this. Worn weather stripping under doors can be a perfect, easy entry point for mice looking for a warm place to winter. Replacing it is usually as simple as taking the door off the hinges and slipping a new weather strip into the slots.
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Place Traps Next to Vertical Surfaces
Mice are, after all, prey, and they’re born scared. They’re terrified to be out in the open and prefer traveling close to walls. If you want to trap mice, concentrate on these areas.
Once again, the more traps the better, especially in areas where you know mice are hanging out, which is usually where there’s food.
About the Expert
- Meg Pearson is the Training Manager at Critter Control and is a recognized expert source in wildlife control and pest control.
