How To Catch a Mouse: Our Biggest & Most Helpful Posts

It’s mouse season, and two friends have found critter droppings in their kitchen since New Year’s, throwing them into a tizzy. I’ve been through this before, and it drove me crazy how difficult they are to catch. They have patterns that you can expect, and then they break them.

A number of years ago (when I recorded the videos below), I finally DID catch the mouse in our home, but it took days and lots of patience. And in the end, it was a gory glue trap mess that worked, but it made me feel awful. Read through, learn a ton and let us know what works for you.

• This post is particularly good about explaining the importance of cleaning up after and how to prevent mice. There’s also info on disease and a great mouse-catching tip from SunnyBlue1 in the comments:

“Unfortunately, I have a LOT of experience in catching mice. Standard wooden mouse traps work best. Bait with peanut butter, or even better, a little square of raw bacon firmly stuck on the prong. The more aromatic the bait, the better it works. And who can resist bacon?

Slide the trap inside a brown paper bag down to the end. The brown paper bags that slip over wine bottles are the very best, but any smaller bag is good. You want the mouse to be a little confined if possible. You could use an empty cereal box. The mouse likes getting “into” something. But a wine bottle bag is great.

In a perfect world, the mouse will take the bait on the first try. It is wasteful, but I have on occasion just folded up the bag—-mouse, trap, and all—-and tossed the whole thing into the dumpster. On other times I have squealed and cried and removed the little carcass with gloved hands, and recycled the trap. Depends on how many mice I suspect there are, and my budget.

The great thing about the bag (or box) is that the murder scene is contained and you don’t have a second mess to clean up along with the first.

Place the bag on the floor, nestled under the edge of the cabinets.. The mouse will do the rest.”

• On the utility of ultrasonic repellers and steel wool. They work well but only for a while, so you need to fill the holes while they work, and you’re golden.

• A great breakdown of five things to do along with a DIY humane mouse trap.

• This DIY does the trick with a 2-liter soda bottle and a bunch of other household items.

• A particularly good how-to to solve this problem after an infestation. Mice, by the way, pee in order to mark their territory and navigate through it.

• Editor Gregory Han helps out Sinbad, the mouse that’s been caught by the neighbor’s cat, Inga, and keeps him alive for days.

• This was the question that kicked it off, and it was my own as I was facing two mice suddenly living in our home with the prospect that there was a family.

• My first video in which I try to stay up all night and videotape the catching of the mice.

• Night two doesn’t catch anything either, but we learned a lot along the way.

• We eventually caught the two mice with glue traps – yuck – but this was our last video in which we asked a bunch of folks what they did. They are all correct.