The Best Mousetrap | Reviews By Wirecutter - The New York Times

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Why you should trust us

Who this is for

How we picked and tested

Top pick: Tomcat Press ’N Set Mouse Trap

Runner-up: Victor M393 Power-Kill Mouse Trap

Best for when you need a LOT of mouse traps: Victor Easy Set Mouse Trap

Best for the biggest infestations: RinneTraps Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap

What about a cat?

What about sticky glue traps?

What about poisons?

How to prevent mice from entering your home

How to bait and set a mousetrap

What about smart traps?

The competition

We’re not sure what’s worse: seeing an actual mouse in your home, or just finding your cereal boxes gnawed and fresh poop in your cupboards. If there’s a mouse in your walls, you want to get rid of it asap.

After more than 30 hours of research and interviews with industry experts, a combined 20 hours of baiting, setting, and detonating mousetraps, and years of ongoing testing at a New Hampshire farm, we are confident that the Tomcat Press ’N Set Mouse Trap is the proverbial “better” mousetrap. It’s easier to set than the competition without hurting your fingers and easier to empty without touching a dead mouse—and it traps mice just as well as anything else we tested.

Everything we recommend

Top pick

A better mousetrap

Tomcat Press ’N Set Mouse Trap

Effective, inexpensive, and easier to bait, set, and discharge than most competitors, the Tomcat stands out as the proverbial “better” mousetrap.

$6 from Amazon$6 from The Home Depot(pack of two)$6 from Lowe's(pack of two)

Runner-up

A great alternative

Victor M393 Power-Kill Mouse Traps

The Power-Kill has a strong snap and sets easily. It’s very similar to the Tomcat except that the dead mouse (and the accompanying gore) is a little more visible.

$6 from Lowe's(pack of three)$12 from Walmart(pack of two)

Best for...

Best for when you need a LOT of mouse traps

Victor Easy Set Mouse Trap

This iconic trap isn’t as easy to set up or clean out as our pick, but it’s effective and inexpensive enough to buy in bulk and toss after a catch.

$8 from Amazon(pack of four)$2 from Lowe's(pack of four)$1 from Target(pack of two)

Best for...

Best for the biggest infestations

RinneTraps Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap

The Rinne model self-resets after each capture, so it can trap mice all night long. But it’s bulky, and we recommend it only for large infestations or outbuildings.

$20 from AmazonBuy from Lowe's

Top pick

A better mousetrap

Tomcat Press ’N Set Mouse Trap

Effective, inexpensive, and easier to bait, set, and discharge than most competitors, the Tomcat stands out as the proverbial “better” mousetrap.

$6 from Amazon$6 from The Home Depot(pack of two)$6 from Lowe's(pack of two)

With a powerful snap, a sensitive trigger, and mouse-grabbing teeth that remind us of the Monster Book of Monsters in Harry Potter, this simple, inexpensive trap did its mouse-killing job just as well as more traditionally designed traps. It’s small, discreet, and inexpensive, yet it’s just as effective as bulkier gadgets that cost far more money.

Runner-up

A great alternative

Victor M393 Power-Kill Mouse Traps

The Power-Kill has a strong snap and sets easily. It’s very similar to the Tomcat except that the dead mouse (and the accompanying gore) is a little more visible.

$6 from Lowe's(pack of three)$12 from Walmart(pack of two)

If the Tomcat Press ’N Set is not available, we also like the Victor M393 Power-Kill Mouse Trap. In many ways, the two traps are alike. They both have a sensitive trigger, a very simple setting mechanism, and an easy cleanup. We like that the Victor has a very strong snap, but it’s not as discreet as the Tomcat, meaning that after a kill, the brutal results are on full display. With the Tomcat, the snapping portion of the trap is large enough to block some of that nastiness from view. But there is no question that this is an effective trap and for effectiveness we put it on the same footing as the Tomcat.

Best for...

Best for when you need a LOT of mouse traps

Victor Easy Set Mouse Trap

This iconic trap isn’t as easy to set up or clean out as our pick, but it’s effective and inexpensive enough to buy in bulk and toss after a catch.

$8 from Amazon(pack of four)$2 from Lowe's(pack of four)$1 from Target(pack of two)

The Victor Easy Set Mouse Trap does a fine job of killing mice but is trickier to set up than our top pick and doesn’t make it as easy to discharge a dead mouse without touching the body. That means it isn’t as easily reusable, but it’s also cheap enough to throw away along with a dead rodent—and that adds up to some savings when you need to buy a lot of them.

Best for...

Best for the biggest infestations

RinneTraps Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap

The Rinne model self-resets after each capture, so it can trap mice all night long. But it’s bulky, and we recommend it only for large infestations or outbuildings.

$20 from AmazonBuy from Lowe's

If you want a low-maintenance way to catch a lot of mice at once (and we mean a lot of mice), it’s hard to beat the RinneTraps Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap. The Rinne trap attaches to a 5-gallon bucket and lures mice onto a trap door that is weighted to reset itself. Once a mouse falls through and into the bucket, the trap is immediately ready again and will continually catch mice with no human intervention. With an empty bucket, the mice are trapped alive, so they can be released. The other option is to fill the bucket with a few inches of water, which drowns them. In our testing, the Rinne was so successful and trapped so many mice that we needed to remove it from the test area (an old barn) in order to catch mice with the other traps we were looking at. With four different styles of traps set up, the RinneTrap caught 10 mice over a two-night period, while the other traps caught zero. The Rinne is a bulky trap, and if you don’t want to deal with either a bucket of live mice or a bucket of drowned mice, it’s not a fit for you. Some people will call a pro before getting to the point of needing the RinneTrap, but for those willing to take on a large mouse infestation themselves, this trap will assist quite a bit.

Why you should trust us

• Both Wirecutter writers who work on this guide have mouse experience. Senior staff writer Sarah Witman has dealt with mild-to-moderate mouse problems in two houses and a studio apartment in Madison, Wisconsin, and a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, New York. She’s also descended from three generations of butchers, who taught the value of a quick and clean kill.
• Senior staff writer Doug Mahoney lives in a 1773 house with a fieldstone foundation. This, along with the fact that he raises sheep, chickens, pigs, and cows, means he is no stranger to rodent infestations. In fact, he’s all too familiar with them.
• We consulted Shawn Woods, a YouTuber and mousetrap enthusiast whose weekly video series, Mousetrap Monday, shows him testing all kinds of mousetraps. Woods has nearly 2 million subscribers and, like Wirecutter, makes money from traps purchased through affiliate links on his videos. He rarely gets freebies from trap companies and spent, he told us, “well over $10,000 a year on mousetraps.”
• We also spoke with Matt Frye, PhD, extension educator for Cornell University and New York State Integrated Pest Management; Maxwell Ryan, the CEO and founder of Apartment Therapy, who has tested mousetraps aplenty for the site’s Best Mouse Trap article; and Ashley Brown, then senior marketing and product-development manager at Woodstream, the owners of Victor, Terro, and Havahart, among other animal control brands (she is now senior director of Commercial Business). We also had conversations with Nick Olynyk, the founder of Grandpa Gus’s Pest Control, and Boris Bajlovic, then vice president of Rodent Control at Woodstream. Bajlovic had been working with the Victor company since 2007 and oversaw its product development, sourcing, and sales.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, we review and test products with complete editorial independence. We’re never made aware of any business implications of our editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.

Who this is for

There are a lot of reasons you don’t want mice living in your walls, ranging from the emotional to the practical. But no matter which angle you’re looking at it from, mice are a problem you want to take care of quickly. This guide is for anyone who wants to try to deal with it themselves, before calling in the professionals.

Mice are very invasive. “If you have never had a mouse and now you’ve got one, you think the greatest calamity on Earth has befallen you. There’s a visceral reaction,” Woodstream’s Bajlovic told us. Apartment Therapy’s Ryan said he thinks mice bother people so much because it feels like an invasion of your most intimate, safe place. “Mousetraps were very personal for me,” he said. “I lived in the West Village [the NYC neighborhood] for many years, and I had a lot of mouse issues. It was a small apartment, and my bed was on the floor, so they were physically very close to me. I had a lot of sleepless nights listening to them come and go.”

They carry lots of diseases and chew wires. In addition to feasting their way through your pantry, Mice can spread pathogens such as Lyme, hantavirus, and salmonella, which are harmful to humans. Carrying parasites is another one of their tricks, such as mites, ticks, and fleas. They can also nibble on electrical wires, which can result in some really big problems. According to the Ohio State University Extension Office, “One quarter of house fires with undetermined causes are assumed to be caused by rodents chewing on electrical wires.” And as if all this wasn’t bad enough, the mice in your home are also peeing and pooping all over everything in their path.

They multiply quickly. “Nobody ever has one mouse. You might only see one, but you’ve got like five or six,” Bajlovic told us. And that’s only if you’re lucky enough to be seeing the first wave, because mice reproduce very quickly—one female mouse can give birth to as many as 10 litters, or 60 mice, per year. If left unattended, a little mouse problem can quickly become a big mouse problem.

Rats are a different story. The traps we discuss here are meant for mice, not rats, which are much larger and would likely only be injured by a mousetrap, potentially creating even more problems. If you have a rat problem, you’ll need larger traps designed for bigger rodents, and it may be worth your time to contact an exterminator too.

How we picked and tested

We think that a trap should kill a mouse. That might feel a little savage to some, but it’s what our research and testing bore out. Mice are innocent creatures—they’re just going about their daily lives when they unwittingly trespass on your property, eat your food, and besmirch your belongings with tiny droppings. What’s wrong with just trying to capture them and setting them free somewhere nearby (but not too nearby)?

Well … a lot, as it turns out. Live-capture traps pose a couple of issues. “The biggest problem I have with live-catch traps,” said Woods, “is that if you don’t check them often they just turn into kill traps because the mice get stressed and die in there. And to me that’s worse, to suffer a slow death.” He added that sometimes when multiple mice are confined in a no-kill trap, even just overnight, they “turn into cannibals.”

To deal with the ethical question first, we think that a trap should kill a mouse.

But even if you manage to capture mice alive and get to them in time to ensure their safety, chances are they won’t stay happy and healthy for long. Mice can return to their home from over a quarter-mile away, so to truly stop an infestation you’d need to transport your captured mice a pretty good distance. And it’s likely the creature won’t survive its release into the wild. “Chances are against them,” Bajlovic told us. Mice are not good in unfamiliar territory and are likely to die of starvation, dehydration, or become a meal for a predator. “I don’t know how humane that is either,” said Woods, “just putting them out in nature with a lot of new predators, with no food and no home.” Plus, relocation is illegal in many states.

A trap should allow for multiple kills per night. So it needs to be either a multi-catch trap or a single-catch trap that’s inexpensive enough to buy in bulk, to nip the infestation in the bud. In general, we wanted a trap that was either affordable or else able to be used over and over to offset the cost.

It should be easy to set and easy to empty. We’ve had our fingers snapped enough times to truly appreciate a trap that can be set with our delicate digits far away from the action. The same goes for emptying a trap. Newer models can be emptied without getting your hands anywhere near the gore, which is much nicer than the classic wood traps where you had to get your fingers in there to pry the bar off the dead mouse.

We tested traps in a variety of settings. We first spent time getting familiar with the traps, setting and triggering them with a chopstick in order to get a sense of each one’s ease of use. This told us which traps would keep our fingers safest and which triggers were the most sensitive. Then we used our finalists in more traditional settings; in basements, attics, crawl spaces, out buildings, and other areas we wanted to keep rodent-free. This deepened our knowledge of how the traps were to bait, set, and and empty out. Since we originally published this guide, we’ve continued to use our picks (and any new and relevant models) in this way.

Top pick: Tomcat Press ’N Set Mouse Trap

Top pick

A better mousetrap

Tomcat Press ’N Set Mouse Trap

Effective, inexpensive, and easier to bait, set, and discharge than most competitors, the Tomcat stands out as the proverbial “better” mousetrap.

$6 from Amazon$6 from The Home Depot(pack of two)$6 from Lowe's(pack of two)

In our testing, the Tomcat Press ’N Set Mouse Trap stood out above the rest. Like many traps, it’s powerful and sensitive enough to catch and kill mice effectively—but what sets the Tomcat apart is a design that makes it easier than competitors to set without snapping your fingers. It’s also easier to empty without touching a dead mouse, and (as one of the least expensive traps we tested) it’s one of the most affordable to buy and use in a high enough quantity to head off your mouse problem.

This trap had one of the most powerful snaps of any we tested. You can see in Woods’s video how the trap actually lifts off the ground when killing a mouse. This is important because it means a quick, clean kill—which is not true for some traps that we tested. The Tomcat has a similar baiting system to pretty much every snap trap: You put a little bait in a designated divot and wait for the mouse to try to lick it off, triggering the trap. But the Tomcat seemed more sensitive to touch compared with other snap traps we tried, lessening the likelihood that a mouse will lick all the bait off the trap without triggering it.

The build quality of the Press ’N Set trap is impressive. It has a sturdy, thick plastic that seems difficult for a mouse to chew its way out of—and, as Woods points out in his video, the twin sets of “teeth” help grab onto and kill the mouse in one fell swoop “as it comes smashing down.” This wasn’t the only trap that experts noted was effective in quickly and humanely killing a mouse (although that dual-tooth detail is distinct), but in doing so, it met one of this guide’s most important criteria.

We never accidentally snapped our fingers. Despite its vicious appearance and snap, we felt safer using the Press ’N Set than many of the competitors. The one-click setup makes it nearly impossible to snap your fingers on accident. If you do, it’s pretty harmless—Woods actually closes a Tomcat intentionally on his fingers in his video.

Cleaning out a dead mouse is easy. Although most traps we tested had a no-touch discharge system, this feature made the Press ‘N Set a clear standout above any trap that makes you handle a dead mouse. With the Press ‘N Set, you just grip the same lever used to set the trap and drop the deceased animal into the trash. And because the trap is made of plastic, you can easily wash and reuse it, making it more cost-effective and environmentally friendly—or, at least, a better option than something thrown away after a single use.

It’s not much more expensive than basic models. With all of the improvements this trap offers over other, more traditional models, we would have expected to pay a premium. But these traps usually go for about $7 for two, which is only a few dollars more than the cheapest traps we tested (our also-great pick) and cheaper than nearly every option in the Competition section. With hundreds of positive reviews, the Tomcat is regularly available online.

To get the best results with the Tomcat (and, really, all snap traps) you should get a bunch of traps and set them up strategically around your home. Frye said you should place a few side by side—if the mouse sees one trap and tries to jump over it, you might still get it on the jump. This guide’s research turned up a lot more info about how to bait and set a trap, but the conclusion, as far as the Tomcat goes, is that not only is it effective as a single trap, its low price means it’s also effective at affordably solving the problem that got you reading this guide in the first place.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It isn’t the easiest to clean. The primary complaint that we and some Amazon reviewers have is that the Tomcat is a little tricky to clean because of all its nooks and crannies. You really need to get in there with a cotton swab, or a strong blast of water, to get it completely free of peanut butter. But this isn’t a major problem because, as you can see at the end of Woods’s video, it’s such a clean kill that you might not have to extensively clean out the trap even between uses.

It’s more expensive than some. You can easily find other snap traps that will do the job for less, but the Tomcat’s powerful snap paired with the fact that it’s so easy to set up and discharge make it well worth spending the extra money.

This trap is not indestructible. After detonating several Tomcat traps dozens of times with a chopstick, we noticed that one of the traps started to have trouble functioning (we could still set it with no problem, but about half of the time the bait area wouldn’t trigger the snap, and we would have to reset it). Considering that this happened to only one of the traps, and how inexpensive this trap is, we didn’t think this problem was a dealbreaker.

Runner-up: Victor M393 Power-Kill Mouse Trap

Runner-up

A great alternative

Victor M393 Power-Kill Mouse Traps

The Power-Kill has a strong snap and sets easily. It’s very similar to the Tomcat except that the dead mouse (and the accompanying gore) is a little more visible.

$6 from Lowe's(pack of three)$12 from Walmart(pack of two)

If the Tomcat traps aren’t available, we also like the Victor M393 Power-Kill Mouse Trap. This trap has many of the same positives of the Tomcat; it can be easily set with one hand, cleanup isn’t too difficult, and the overall build quality is nice. The only downside compared with the Tomcat is that it has the more traditional bar as the striking piece (instead of the plastic jaws), so the gore of a kill is on full display. On the Tomcat, the bulkier jaws often hid the more gory parts of the kill. Cost fluctuates, but we’ve consistently seen the Power-Kill traps sold for the same price as the Tomcat traps, except that you get three instead of two, so the per unit cost is usually lower.

Best for when you need a LOT of mouse traps: Victor Easy Set Mouse Trap

Best for...

Best for when you need a LOT of mouse traps

Victor Easy Set Mouse Trap

This iconic trap isn’t as easy to set up or clean out as our pick, but it’s effective and inexpensive enough to buy in bulk and toss after a catch.

$8 from Amazon(pack of four)$2 from Lowe's(pack of four)$1 from Target(pack of two)

The Victor Easy Set Mouse Trap is one of the few traps that’s even cheaper than the Tomcat Press ’N Set and the Power-Kill, and it’s even easier to find. It’s also less durable than the others, and it can’t be washed and reused as easily. But it works well, it’s pretty reliable, and it’s usually a few dollars less than the Tomcat, so it’s a good option if you’re looking to load up on a lot of traps or if you want to think of them as disposable.

The faux-cheese trigger is large. The main difference between this model and the old-school Victor Original (the best-selling wood-and-wire trap you see everywhere) is the expanded trigger—it looks like a bright yellow slice of Swiss cheese—which some people say is more effective at catching mice. It also has two settings (sensitive and firm) to give you a little more control over the trigger, although we didn’t think this feature noticeably improved the trap’s function. And despite its name, we did not find the Easy Set any easier to set than the Original.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

Watch those fingers. The main reason we’d suggest the Tomcat model or the Power-Kill over the Victor is the ease of setup. Whereas the Tomcat and Power-Kill offer one of the most stress-free bait and setup procedures, the Easy Set leaves open the possibility that you can snap your finger under the wire.

Best for the biggest infestations: RinneTraps Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap

Best for...

Best for the biggest infestations

RinneTraps Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap

The Rinne model self-resets after each capture, so it can trap mice all night long. But it’s bulky, and we recommend it only for large infestations or outbuildings.

$20 from AmazonBuy from Lowe's

If you have an extremely large infestation (and aren’t yet ready to call a pro), consider the RinneTraps Flip N Slide Bucket Lid Mouse Trap. This trap sits on the top of a 5-gallon bucket (not included) and lures mice to a trapdoor that dumps them in the bucket. The trap then automatically resets itself. If you leave the bucket empty, the mice are caught alive and can be relocated, but if you put a few inches of water in the bucket, the mice will drown. Based on our research, we don’t like either of those options, but at the same time, we understand that there may be instances when an infestation is out of control and needs an extreme solution. Woods is a big fan of the RinneTrap, calling it the “greatest mousetrap ever invented,” and our testing produced the same results: The RinneTrap is capable of catching a lot of mice, with zero oversight.

This trap will raise an ethical problem for some people. You’re either drowning the mouse or releasing it in the wild, neither of which is very pleasant for the mouse. As we discuss above, releasing a mouse away from its home typically results in death anyway, either by the elements or a predator. And drowning goes against our requisite for a quick, clean kill (and as Woods noted in a recent video, bucket traps have become illegal in some European countries). But in this instance, the RinneTrap offers something the other traps don’t: the ability to catch mouse after mouse after mouse without any oversight, resetting, or rebaiting of the trap.

It’s capable of catching a lot of mice. In just two nights of testing the RinneTrap, we caught 10 mice in a farm outbuilding. We had snap traps set up in the same room, about 2 feet away from the RinneTrap, and they remained untouched over the same two nights. In fact, we ultimately had to remove the RinneTrap from the area in order to test the other traps.

The success of the RinneTrap has to do with how it is baited. You smear your bait of choice (in our case, peanut butter) on the underside of a hood piece that is positioned over the trap door. The key is that the trap door opens up with the mouse still about 4 or 5 inches away from the bait. So in order to be trapped, the mouse needs only to be interested in the bait, not engaged with it, as it has to be with a snap trap. Add this to the fact that the RinneTrap resets itself, and the next thing you know, you’ve got a bucket full of mice.

The RinneTrap is most effective at controlling excessive mouse activity. It isn’t the tool for a little mouse maintenance here and there. To do something similar with snap traps would require setting up 10 or 20 snap traps, but baiting and positioning those gets tedious and might not even be possible due to space constraints. It also might not be enough. In contrast, the capabilities of the RinneTrap grow or reduce with the infestation; it just catches the mice that are present. You don’t need to worry about not setting out enough traps or wondering if you’re wasting your time by setting out too many.

Woods really likes the RinneTrap and has a video showing it catching 54 mice (and one rat). He said the RinneTrap was “one of the best mousetraps I’ve ever tested out.” There are other designs that incorporate a 5-gallon bucket, but Woods tested three leading competitors against the RinneTrap, and the RinneTrap caught the most mice by far.

There are a number of imitators of the RinneTrap, and Woods warns against them. He tested one of them against the RinneTrap, and it did not catch as many mice; he said that it was “full of failures.” So even if a trap looks nearly identical to the RinneTrap, we think you should resist the urge to save a few dollars.

What about a cat?

No guide to catching mice would be complete without discussing the most timeless mousetrap of all: a cat.

Unfortunately, there are just too many differences among cat personalities and their behavior with mice, to recommend a cat as a primary course of action against an infestation.

We also found that it’s likely mice go to ground when a cat is near, which likely won’t help your problem. This research was not conducted on mice specifically, but a 2016 study focused on rats found that they hoard more food when they know a predator is near. If mice responded similarly, it could complicate the infestation, with mice leaving their nest infrequently, finding new travel routes, and stockpiling food, leading to odors, bugs, and chewed wires. Scared mice hiding in your walls does not resolve the problem. And if you do have a cat that hunts mice, be aware that they could catch a disease or parasite from their prey.

What about sticky glue traps?

A lot of the people we talked to told me that they hate using sticky glue traps—flat trays or three-dimensional objects with a glue coating that the mice touch and get stuck to—but that they continue to use them because they’ve been successful when all other types have failed. Glue traps are relatively easy to set, don’t require bait, and are readily available.

To this point, Cornell’s Frye told us that although glue traps do work well for cockroaches and other insects, “according to the research and literature, they’re actually not all that effective against mice.” He said this is because adult mice have “guard hairs” on their paws that can detect differences in texture. So when they feel the stickiness of a glue trap, they’ll avoid it. Because of this, he said, you might catch juvenile mice that haven’t yet developed these hairs, but you’ll rarely catch an adult mouse. Woods is no fan either and has a video titled “An Honest Look at Sticky Glue Tray Mouse Traps.”

What about poisons?

Some household rodent poisons—anticoagulants in particular—work better than others for mice, but none are completely safe to use around young kids and pets and some of the more effective ones aren’t easily available to nonprofessionals. Poison also introduces issues with the disposal of dead mice, because animals that scavenge their carcasses will get sick. As Frye explains in this video, mice that consume poison often feel sick and can retreat to their nests before dying, creating a smelly problem inside your walls or near your home. There is also the issue of secondary poisoning of owls and raptors that can occur when a predator eats a poisoned mouse. Given the wide number of variables involved, and with so many good, affordable trap options available, we didn’t consider poisons for this review, and we discourage their use.

How to prevent mice from entering your home

If you live in a house or apartment with mice, or that has had mice in the past, the biggest thing you can do to keep them from returning is to seal up gaps, cracks, and holes (the CDC has a good list of places to look for these). There are many ways of doing this, and the right method will depend on the size of the hole. In most cases, for pests, you’ll want to use a sealant (which is different from a sealer) containing siliconized acrylic latex or ethylene copolymers. While caulks pull away from the sides of a hole when they dry, sealants stick to every surface. They last up to three decades, can be painted and cleaned, and will maintain a seal in a wide range of temperatures and other environmental pressures. Caulk will not do this, nor will foam fillers. It’s also harder for mice to chew through a good sealant than a caulk or foam.

If you don’t feel comfortable using a sealant, or if your lease won’t allow it, you can also use steel wool to temporarily plug up holes through which you know mice are traveling. Because it’s made of metal, the mice can’t chew through it.

According to the CDC, it’s also a good idea to store food and pet food in sealed plastic or metal containers, clean up promptly after meals and spills, and keep compost, bird feeders, and animal feed as far away from your home as possible and make sure your trash barrels have secure lids.

How to bait and set a mousetrap

As Ryan put it to me, “You’re not luring them to the bait, you’re just putting it in their way.” Mice like to go straight from their nest to a known source of food, taking the same path each time without deviating from it. “They travel along walls, they’re not going to run across the kitchen. That’s very unusual for the mouse,” Woodstream’s Bajlovic told us. Knowing this, it’s best to place your traps right along your baseboards, in corners, and near holes and cracks where you’ve seen a mouse coming or going—or near evidence of mouse activity like bite marks and droppings. Baljovic summed up the idea, “mice are on the bottom of the food chain, everything eats them, so the less they can travel the better for them. So if they can find some of that food they have to travel 20 feet to get, but it’s only 10 feet in, they’re likely to engage.”

Placing some traps side by side can sometimes catch mice jumping past a trap, as Frye mentioned in our pick section, and he also suggests buying about six snap traps per mouse to increase your odds of getting a catch.

In terms of the best types of bait, everyone we talked to agreed that peanut butter and Nutella are the best—they’re both aromatic, high in fat and protein, easy to apply to traps, inexpensive, and they don’t dry up and harden as fast as cheese. Bajlovic also mentioned peanut butter and Nutella, but told us that the pros often bait with whatever food the mice have been getting into, “If your mouse is eating your peanuts, you should use those peanuts as bait on your mousetrap. They like it, they're familiar with it, they're going to go after it.”

Although we didn’t try it ourselves, Woods also swears by Tootsie Rolls because you can ball up little pieces of them and stick them to a trap, making the mouse work harder to get it off and (ideally) increasing your likelihood of catching the mouse. He said he also knows people who glue down their bait and traps to make them stay put. Corrigan’s book says you can also bait traps with bits of twine or other materials that you know the mouse has been using to build its nest.

Whatever you use, it’s crucial not to overbait your traps. A pea-size amount will do. Otherwise the mouse will just lick a bunch off the edges, get full, and move on without setting off the trap.

Timing is important too. According to Bajlovic “Your first night is your most important trapping night. You're most likely to catch the most amount of mice on that first night that you set out traps.” Make sure you’re putting out a bunch of traps on this first night.

What about smart traps?

Smart traps offer the benefits of remote monitoring. Because of an app, you don’t need to be anywhere near your trap in order to see if it’s been tripped. Some models also let you know when your bait is stale and they’ll keep a log of the trap’s activity, so you can quickly evaluate your mouse issues over time. We’re excited about these developments and see a lot of potential, but at the moment, these traps have enough drawbacks that we only recommend them for those who truly need their unique features. For the vast majority, regular old snap traps will do just fine.

We recently tested the GoodNature Clever Killer and it’s clearly the best smart trap we’ve looked at (a few years ago, we tested a Victor smart trap that has since been discontinued). The Clever Killer’s app interface is organized and it worked as advertised, successfully letting us know each time we killed a mouse. The app connects to the trap via Bluetooth, so we still needed to be relatively near to the trap to do our monitoring.

The Clever Killer resets itself after each kill, which is a great feature in theory, but in our experience, after each kill, the dead mouse blocked the bait area. So we needed to clean that one out before the trap could be used again.

Our primary concern with the Clever Killer is the cost. This mouse trap runs about $100. That’s enough for over 30 Tomcat traps, each of which can kill a mouse with the same efficiency as the Clever Killer. This trap is also larger than a normal trap, so it might not fit where you need it. Because it is battery powered, it will need periodic charging.

But even with these drawbacks, the Clever Killer does work and there are those who would benefit from it. If you’re someone with limited mobility and checking basement traps is not something easily done, this type of remote monitoring will save you a lot of trips up and down the stairs. But if you’re someone who just wants to quickly deal with a mouse sighting in the kitchen or garage, there is no sense in buying a $100 trap, no matter what features it offers.

The competition

The GoodNature A24 Smart Trap Kit and A24 Starter Trap Kit are powered by a CO2 cartridge that fires a piston similar to the captive bolt guns used in slaughterhouses (and seen in No Country For Old Men). Each CO2 canister can power 24 shots of the piston. Once a rodent is killed, it falls out of the trap where it can be collected or, if the trap is positioned outside, removed by a predator. These are not simple snap traps and are priced accordingly with the Starter Trap Kit retailing for about $100 and theSmart Trap Kit (with an app that tracks usage) going for roughly $150. They’re really suited for dealing with a large infestation in an outbuilding, like a barn.

The Victor Safe-Set Mouse Trap is similar to our main pick and Victor runner-up, but the trigger isn’t as sensitive as the Tomcat’s. We thought the Victor Power-Kill was just as easy to set and is typically a little less expensive.

Victor also has an electronic trap, the Victor M250S. It costs around $20, which is a decent amount to pay, especially considering the snap traps are only a couple of dollars each. Still, it’s a good option if you’re concerned about pets and kids.

The Country Porch’s Sliding Tube Mouse Trap (now discontinued) has a simple design—pull the two ends apart, line up the holes, and wedge a piece of solid bait in the hole to prop it open—although it’s a little finicky to set it up. We also found that it was cumbersome to take it apart to wash, and we don’t relish the idea of doing so when there’s a dead mouse attached—the trap is small enough that you’d almost certainly have to touch the mouse. Plus, you can only buy it on The Country Porch’s website and we currently can’t get the website to load.

The Intruder The Better Mouse Trap is easy to bait and set, but compared with the Tomcat it has a weak-sauce snap—something that Woods also noted in his video review. We also thought its trigger was less sensitive than other, comparably priced snap traps. We wouldn’t buy it.

Woods told us that in his own home—and the homes of friends and family members who frequently request his services—he usually uses the Made2Catch Easy Use Mouse Trap – Super Sensitive, as well as a newer variation called the Made2Catch Easy Use Mouse Trap – New Generation. Both appear to have been discontinued, but when we originally tested them, we thought they seemed a little flimsier than the Tomcat Press ’N Set, their snap was a little weaker, and we noticed that several of the “teeth” had broken off after just a few detonations.

Before our reporting discouraged us from using no-kill traps, we selected three to test. Of those, the Victor Tin Cat Mouse Trap with Window was the best option, with a sturdy metal box design that mice won’t be able to chew their way out of. And the window lets you see when you’ve caught a mouse, which is imperative for minimizing the animal’s time inside the trap. The Tin Cat costs between $10 to $20 per trap, putting it at a huge disadvantage relative to our pick, but at least it’s sturdier than others of its type. A word of caution: Many no-kill traps can get very hot if left in direct sunlight, and this may be especially true for the Tin Cat.

The Smart Mouse Trap Humane Mouse Trap wasn’t as sturdy as the Tin Cat even though it costs about the same. It’s made entirely of a thin plastic that we wouldn’t expect to survive more than a year of use. It was also kind of a pain to clean peanut butter out of the bait tray. But the trap’s mechanism seems effective enough to trap a single mouse, and the setup and discharge are a breeze. We also liked that it has plenty of breathing holes, which are a must for any no-kill trap.

Variations of the 5-gallon bucket trap are everywhere, but none have the success of the RinneTrap. Many of them have a collapsing gangplank. These don’t cover the top of the bucket, like the RinneTrap does, so they’re not as discreet. As mentioned earlier, Woods tested four popular bucket traps (video) against one another, and the RinneTrap was clearly the most successful.

Peppermint and essential oils have long been used as a natural mouse repellent. But Frye told us that no rigorous scientific studies have shown that they work. The oils, like those in Grandpa Gus’s Mouse Repellent pouches, are supposed to cause a burning sensation in the mice’s nose, eyes, and mouth that won’t harm them but makes them stay away. After trying out these products ourselves, we’re still not convinced they do anything more than make your home smell like Fireball Whisky and peppermint schnapps. Plus, John Hopkins Children’s Hospital does not recommend using peppermint oil on children less than 30 months old, so there are risks involved if you have young ones around.

Victor has a line of indoor and outdoor scent repellents. Brown said a lot of Victor’s customers don’t buy repellents until they already have an infestation, which she said is too late. “You’re not going to be able to put out a repellent and make them flee their homes,” she said. “We recommend killing, then repelling.” Again, though, there’s no conclusive evidence that these repellents work.

Woods said that no ultrasonic mouse repellent he’s tried has worked at all: “The mice walked right up to it.” Seeing as they cost between $20 to $150, we’re comfortable taking his word for it that the technology is just not there yet on these types of devices.

This article was edited by Harry Sawyers.

Meet your guides

Doug Mahoney

What I Cover

I write about a variety of home topics that range from tools and outdoor power equipment to fire safety and plumbing (toilets, bidets, and plungers). I also handle our pest-control guides, including those focused on bug repellents and mousetraps. I assist with some emergency-prep coverage, as well.

Sarah Witman

What I Cover

I research and test a wide variety of batteries, including some that are smaller than a Tootsie Roll (for tiny gadgets such as a stylus or penlight) or bigger than an overweight English bulldog (to keep vital electronics running during a power outage or camping trip). To test chargers, I’ve spent countless hours waiting for the batteries in my phone, laptop, and other household appliances to die—just so I could recharge them. Outside of my usual coverage areas, I’ve reported on the best wooden pencils, mousetraps, massage chairs, and scented candles for Wirecutter.

Further reading

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  The Best Accessory for Being a Healthy Couch Potato

  by Sarah Witman

  The LapGear Designer Lap Desk is comfortable to use and roomy enough to fit a 17-inch laptop. Plus, it has extra storage for a phone and other supplies.
• 

  Our Favorite Table Lamps

  by Joshua Lyon

  A great table lamp adds a touch of drama to a room and brightens it up. And it sets the mood, even when it’s switched off. Here are 10 of our favorites.
• 

  Our Favorite Convertible and All-in-One Car Seats

  by Christina Szalinski

  After researching dozens of seats and testing 17, we’ve concluded that the Graco Extend2Fit Convertible is the best convertible car seat for most families.

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