We are about to share our ratings for commonly found mouse traps. Traps play an integral role in rodent control. They mechanically remove these pests from inside your home. Before we get into mouse trap ratings, let’s touch upon the three control methods for pests. This will help you take a holistic approach instead of relying on our best-rated mouse traps.
Chemical Control Methods
Rodenticides
Rodenticides, or mouse bait, are examples of chemical control methods for mice. These are desirable food baits with a blood thinner in them. Place your bait in tamper-resistant bait stations for best practices. The downside of rodenticide is that you do not retrieve the rodent carcasses.
On the contrary, some people want to avoid the maintenance of handling dead mice. So, the risk of smelling a carcass is worth the lower maintenance requirements. Pesticides are generally considered safe if applied according to the Label instructions. So follow the instructions. Then, there should be little risk of poisoning your cat or neighboring wildlife.
Repellents
Repellents are another example of a chemical control method for mice. There are few effective repellants for rodents. Nature’s Defense is the most reputable. These products change the behavior of rodents in and around the building. They have the most practical use around commercial buildings. It is not a silver bullet but helps when used in conjunction with other control methods. Keep this in mind. You will want to use a combination of control methods to get the results you are looking for.
Cultural Control Methods
These are ways to manipulate the environment to control the target pest. The best examples of cultural control methods for mice are sanitation and exclusion. Removing food sources inside and out helps mice go for your traps and bait. Sealing entry points outside stops new mice from coming in. Hiring an exterminator specializing in mouse-proofing homes should be a high priority. If you do not live in Cleveland, Ohio, use nwcoa.org to find a wildlife control professional.
We recommend that homeowners use fewer chemicals and more natural control methods. So stop feeding the birds. Pick up all of your fallen acorns. Remove ivy and ground cover surrounding your home. Plug up some holes. Clean up food debris from the kitchen. Trim tree branches away from the house. Inspect and place traps accordingly.
Mechanical Control Methods
Mechanical control methods include vacuuming bugs, heat treatments, cultivating soil, and using traps. Not many mechanical control methods apply to mice besides traps.
What Control Methods Should You Use?
When our mouse exterminators come into a home, we focus on the following:
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Inspecting inside to locate areas of activity.
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Checking outside to find points of entry into the structure.
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Making repairs to all potential entry points outside.
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Setting traps/ rodenticide to control the remaining rodent population inside.
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Provide recommendations the homeowner can do to keep the mouse population at bay. (These include implementing cultural control methods.)
You should follow the same process. If you feel uneasy, hire a professional. Do your research before hiring. There are a lot of lousy mouse exterminators out there. Read this article for more information on hiring a pro.
The Problem With Finding The Best Mouse Trap
We are always looking for the best product- a silver bullet per se. Consumerism narrows our focus and deters us from analyzing problems as a whole. After reading this, we recommend buying and using the recommended traps. But do so, knowing that more goes into mouse control than trapping.
Even the best-rated mouse traps can be ineffective if you do not know what you are doing. For trapping tips, please read our article on common trapping mistakes.
Mouse Traps And Their Ratings
No Touch, No See, Traps
Rating: 2 out of 10
What could be better than trapping a mouse in a container? You do not get the dead body contaminating the surfaces of the home. The trap signals that you caught a mouse. And you throw the whole thing out. Easy. There are no bad feelings associated with looking at a fellow mammal that you killed. And the traps won’t snap on your kids and pets.
The problem is that these traps catch fewer mice than more effective traps. That is why I give these traps a rating of two.
Once I invested in these traps based on the benefits mentioned above. I had to refund one person’s money when I used the Victor Kill Vault Traps. And everyone I talked to told me they didn’t catch mice when using the Bell Hidden Kill Traps. These are similar to the Tomcat Spin Trap. We left around 100 of these traps inside people’s kitchens. What a waste that was.
Many of our customers try to catch mice themselves. At a certain point, they quit and called us. So we get to see all of the retail products that failed them. The most common traps are glue traps, D-con No Touch No See Traps, and the Tomcat Kill and Contain Mouse Trap. We have never tried those but see so many inside homes that we presume they provide poor results.
The one container mouse trap that we recommend is the Victor Clean Kill mouse trap. Its low profile fits well into silverware/ kitchen drawers. And they work reasonably well. We rub the inside with fruit and nut oil to counteract the mice’s reluctance to enter container traps.
We rate container traps at two because you’d be lucky to catch about two mice with them.
Glue Traps
Rating: 3 out of 10
Glue traps are popular! You will find them well-stocked at stores, and they are affordable. Can you imagine getting stuck on a bed of glue and dying there? There are better ways to go. If humane trapping is a concern, do not use glue traps.
We rate glue traps a three because they are about 30% effective. Adult mice have sensory hairs on the bottom of their bodies. The hairs alert mice not to step on glue boards. As a result, glue boards tend to catch little juvenile mice.
Rodents can get half stuck on these traps and pull them into hard-to-reach areas. If given enough time, many of them escape glue traps. Between all of this, we do not recommend glue traps. There is a benefit of collecting juvenile mice. So, we give it a solid three. Mix a few in with snap traps.
Live Traps
Rating: 6 out of 10
The main thing to remember about live traps is that caught mice can become stressed within hours. Mice can cannibalize each other when caught together. Mice do not hold body heat very well, so they can die in the traps quickly. All of this can happen overnight. Even if you check the traps first thing in the morning, the mice will likely be stressed. And they only sometimes survive once stressed to this capacity. A mouse’s territory is only 10-30 feet from where you catch them. You will likely want to release them further away. Mice released outside of their territory are likely to die of starvation or murder.
If you use a live trap, we recommend mouse-proofing your house first. That way, you can release them in familiar territory. You will catch most mice while you are sleeping. Doing so can leave them in the traps for too long. Plan on checking live traps every couple of hours to make your live traps a humane trapping method.
In our opinion, the most effective live traps are the Motel Mouse and the Victor/ Tomcat Live Catch. These catch one mouse at a time. Doing so will prevent the cannibalism problems with Multi-catch traps.
Tin Cats/ Multi-Catch Traps
Rating: 5 out of 10
These containers use trap doors to trap mice inside. These can be hit or miss. When I first started controlling mice, it was at NASA Glenn Research Center. I had an old tin cat. I would place it in offices, drop ceilings, and almost anywhere. It caught so many mice because it was well-used and had a mousey odor. These are versatile traps. Nowadays, I keep two inside of my garage. Most of the time, exterminators use them inside commercial buildings or in restaurants.
The best way I heard it was that they catch mice. But you should rely on something other than them to control a mouse population.
I suggest avoiding the Ketch All mouse trap. Once, I had high expectations for a multi-catch trap for use in attics. I bought many of them. The mice get stuck in the swinging door. It made the traps very disappointing.
They also sell plastic multi-catch traps. Two are called Trapper 24/7 and Victor Catch and Hold. We had many mice chew their way out of these traps. Use the metal traps. Some brand names are Little Pete, Repeater, and Tin Cat. You can place a glue trap inside to dispose of the caught mice easily.
Covered Mouse Traps
Rating: 8 out of 10
These are snap traps that are covered. Manufacturers market them as child and dog-safe. You can still get a cat paw or finger in there and get snapped. But they are better than no cover at all. Covered snap traps are a good alternative if you cannot keep children and pets out of the trapping area. With regular snap traps, you can place them on the trails and get a body kill. A body kill is where the mouse runs over or past the trigger. They get snapped without sticking their heads in the bait to feed. When you use a covered snap trap, you take away body kills. You are relying on a mouse to eat the food in the trap.
Covered snap traps provide increased safety. However, the effectiveness is less compared to regular snap traps. But they are much more effective than the fully contained “no-see, no-touch” traps. Brand names are:
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The D-Con Reusable Ultra-Set mouse trap.
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Jawz Mouse Depot.
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Kness Little Snap-E.
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Doombox.
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Trap-Rite boxes.
- We consider the electric traps in the same category.
Our preference is Trap-rite boxes with wooden snap traps inside. That is what we use at homes that we service. The Doombox is similar but made of plastic instead of cardboard.
Reusable Easy-Set Plastic Mouse Traps
Rating: 8 out of 10
People have been trying to build a better mouse trap for ages. Old-fashioned wooden snap traps are hard to beat. These come close! The benefit of these is that you can reuse them. All you have to do is press down on the back of the trap. Doing so releases the mouse into the trash and resets the trap. You will find many types of plastic snap traps. Some are better than others. Unlike wooden snap traps, there is no adjusting the pressure required to trip the trigger. Unfortunately, mice can lick the bait clean when not heavy enough to set off the trap. That is the only downside.
Now, there are a few reusable plastic traps that I would not use. “The Better Mouse Trap” is one of them. This won’t hurt your finger if you accidentally snap yourself. There is just something about it that doesn’t catch mice well.
So, there are two ways these plastic traps kill mice. One is by cervical dislocation, and one is by suffocation. The traps with teeth are the ones that kill by suffocation. These traps do not kill rodents as quickly. As a result, they are less humane. The plastic breakback traps are usually named “power kill.” I prefer the break-back traps over the suffocation traps.
The highest-rated mouse trap currently is the Tomcat Press ‘N Set. This suffocation trap is sensitive yet sturdy. It has the right balance to make it a quality trap. They are just as good as most wooden snap traps. Wooden snap traps have a lower profile, which helps with trap success. My preference goes to wooden snap traps. But if you need easy disposal and reusability, go with this trap!
Wooden Snap Traps
Rating: 9 out of 10
I used to be in love with the Victor Expanded Trigger Trap. You know, the one with the big yellow trigger. They worked way better than anything else. Then, to my dismay, they downgraded the trap in 2023. The printed logo on the trap changed. Since then, you can set them down, and they will snap on you. We had to buy tiny pliers to adjust the hammer. Otherwise, they snap just by setting them on the ground.
Despite this, we still use wooden snap traps for our clean-outs. They are affordable enough to throw out with the caught mice. And they are the most effective trap that we have ever used. There is not a lot of bulk to the trap. The wood makes it less suspicious than a big, bulky plastic contraption. We love them. Victor is the most popular brand. They have metal petal triggers or plastic expanded triggers.
Other brands include JT Eaton Bigfoot, Catchmaster, and Tomcat. All very similar traps. We use Victor Expanded Trigger Traps and Catchmaster. The Victor metal petal traps work too. With those, we recommend hooking a raisin over the trigger.
Conclusion
Trapping is part of the entire mouse control process. Focus long-term on habitat modification and rodent-proofing your home. Always keep mouse traps set when conducive conditions exist. If rodent-proofing the structure is not practical, use traps to catch them as they come in. Do your research on how to set up traps within the home. Then, choose traps according to the situation and your needs.
Our Favorite Way To Set Mouse Traps
By far, we use wooden snap traps whenever possible. When we need to contain the traps, we use Trap Rite Boxes or paper lunch bags. Simply place a lunch bag on it’s side. Then slide a snap trap to the back. This works great trapping mice underneath sinks.
Keep in mind that all of these traps have some merit. Otherwise they wouldn’t be sold in stores. This article is also our opinion. There could be some traps that work better than what we recommend. For example, some of the plastic covered traps could work better than a plastic bag. It is just that we have an appreciation for things that do the job for less, are effective and are disposable. The less that you have to handle wildlife the better.
