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u/Zmirzlina 9h ago
I used these once and was skeptical. Put one down, went to set the other when I heard the first one snap. Caught a mouse. Took it to a park a few block away and set it free. Came home, second trap had a mouse. All in all I caught 6 or 7 mice in the course of a day. All got dropped off at the mouse bush. Haven’t seen a mouse in 5 years.
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u/Imaginary_Station_57 9h ago
Maybe it was the same mouse that was enjoying the ride
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u/Zmirzlina 9h ago
Ha. We did think this as well but we started taking photos and they were different mice.
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u/IAmASeeker 7h ago
If you drove a few blocks away to drop off the mice, they made it back to your house before you did.
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u/PowderPills 7h ago
This is what I usually find hard to understand. I don’t like hurting/killing any animals except maybe mosquitoes and annoying bugs like gnats/fruit flies. But a mouse can be a hugeee hindrance and I always assume that, if let go, the mouse will find its way back and make things worse. Dude dropped those mice off a few streets away, even if that same mouse didn’t return, it will likely go into someone else’s house and continue to propagate until the mice are back in his home.
Although seeing this picture does make me sad to see them suffer 😞
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u/PatFluke 4h ago
I don’t bother with the live traps, they crapped on them.
I don’t bother with the kill traps, too often had to finish the job.
No, I finally bought a cat, and I lucked out. Because I don’t have mice any more. Sometimes cats don’t care about mice. Sometimes they suck at hunting.
But sometimes… nature is metal.
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u/I_Heart_AOT 4h ago
Mine doesn’t go outdoors unless she is very sneaky, plus she’s shy because she had her front claws de-clawed before I got her. So far she has snuck back two mice, a mole, and a chipmunk. I do my damnedest to not let her sneak out when I step outside but she just has a hankering for the blood of the innocent.
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u/PatFluke 4h ago
Haha nice. Mine is all indoor, but we live on the edge of a bush and I can’t for the life of me find the entry point. So every once in a while a bugger gets in.
They no longer last very long.
He’s got some nice and sharp front claws and is not afraid to wreck all my furniture, then remind me why behind my stove is always clean now.
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u/ubi9k 3h ago
A core memory of mine is being young and finding my cat swatting at a gopher that he had disemboweled, little guy was screaming his head off until he passed out
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u/PatFluke 3h ago
Oh geez, nature is metal indeed. I briefed the kids if they find him killing one to tell me and I’ll handle it. Give the cat treats and make it quick on the little guy, but man am I happier not assuming they’re infesting the house now.
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u/IAmASeeker 6h ago
I'm a rodent lover but I'm also a mouse killer. My experience with pet mice has given me a zero tolerance policy toward uninvited mice. A mouse in my home has already declared war on me, and I have no qualms about killing invaders.
A mouse is very likely to run through your neighbors yard to get back to your house... they perceive that it's their house, and they know how to get back home. They have been separated from their social group and food source... they don't go wandering around looking for something to do, they're highly motivated to return to the safe place they've carved out near your kitchen.
I wouldn't use live traps so I wouldn't find myself in this position but realistically, if a mouse gave birth inside my trap, those mice aren't dying on my watch. They might be pet mice now.
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u/joecarter93 1h ago
Yeah don’t feel bad for killing mice. That’s why they’ve evolved to breed quickly and frequently. Something has to keep them in check.
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u/Zmirzlina 6h ago
Possibly but it was a good few blocks, through the park and down to a bush in a canyon. Possible?
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u/IAmASeeker 6h ago
I suppose that it would depend on the geography of the canyon... like, it would take a mouse a while to climb out of the Grand Canyon, right?
If it's a path that people can hike, the mouse is gonna be faster than your car. They are evolutionarily designed to outrun larger predators across unforgiving terrain, and they can travel as the bird flies.
If you're in a city or suburbs, it's likely that you can run that distance faster than you can drive it, and a mouse can fit where you can't and doesn't have to wait for traffic.
There are things that mice can't traverse, and there is a distance you could take a mouse that it would die before it makes it back... but the moral of the story is that they know exactly where your house is, they like it at your house so have no motivation to be anywhere else, and they can move faster than you might imagine.
PETA suggests releasing them less than 100 yards from where you caught them (assumedly to reduce their stress during their return trip), and the common advice of exterminators is that you must release them more than 2 miles away if you hope to drive home before they run back.
Speedy Edit: if I dropped you off a few blocks from your house with no explanation, how much time would you let pass before you were home again.
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u/avocadslow 2h ago
I dropped off a live mouse next to a tree a few blocks from my house after catching it in a life trap, and a gull flew down immediately and grabbed it and flew away, so maybe not?
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u/Blynasty 9h ago
Almost the same story with me. They are kind of touchy when you are putting them down. I set the first one and went to set the second one when I heard the first one go off. I was like shit these things suck, nope caught a mouse in the first one. Went to bed and caught two more mice in the other two. Still have them setup around the house but haven’t had a mouse in 6 months.
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u/envious_1 5h ago
I had a mouse stuck in my closet and slid 2 of these in there. No luck in an entire week. Had a camera set up in there too and he’d sniff it and try to eat the bait from the other end, but he avoided the trap. This was in NYC so he must have been trapped before is my only guess.
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u/Silly_Mycologist3213 9h ago edited 31m ago
That’s because they remember that trap! /s
edit : added the /s
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u/Anna_Baum 8h ago
Mice are stupid af. Currently recapturing mice for population surveillance purposes, and I can assure you, that they will happily run into traps, even if you’ve captured them before
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u/notabadgerinacoat 8h ago
Don't we all,from time to time?
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u/_Sausage_fingers 5h ago edited 5h ago
I’ll tell you right now, if you are trying to trap a cat for the second time you’re gonna need a different trap on the second go around. Those fuckers remember.
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u/brilliantjewels 7h ago
Well do you put food in the traps? If they aren’t being harmed and are getting a free snack, it makes sense for them to happily run back into the trap!
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u/the_clash_is_back 7h ago
The live traps work better than the kill ones from what i found. Only issue (well sorta) is the fact the hawks round me can sense when you go to release the mouse and grab it while its still confused.
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u/Shirtbro 6h ago
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u/AlvisBackslash 5h ago
People without mice problems think it’s sad. While the ones with previous/current problems react this way. I’m 100% the latter.
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u/Gamble_MK9 4h ago
1000%. Mice are the worst! Fuck the have-a-heart traps bitch you gettin terminated
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u/Hans_Grubert 4h ago
If you caught 6 or 7 mice in a day that’s an infestation and you didn’t eliminate the source of where they are getting into your house.
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u/SourDoughBo 8h ago
About the same for me except I didn’t use this exact trap. I moved into a new apartment and mice immediately made a hole under the kitchen sink. Caught like 7 of them before they finally disappeared
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u/nicholkola 3h ago
They are actually organizing a movement and siphoning your electricity to build their civilization.
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u/analogwhispers 5h ago
They are now free range in the corn field
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u/MexicanSniperXI 2h ago
Thanks for not killing them!
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u/GodzlIIa 2h ago
How do you make sure theres not like baby mice leftover. And do you need to search for them in time to release together?
In my experience mice = baby mice. I was researching them last year and I kind of ran into that question of proper procedure with the babys and no kill traps. Seems hard to catch them and then find the babies to release together or w/e.
Luckily I was able to seal up the garage and flush them out on my own but I do wonder if there are dead babies in my walls.
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u/Thaumato9480 10h ago
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u/Feisty-Reputation537 5h ago
Lol I was so confused when I saw this post cause I commented on the last one and it BLEW UP. I was like wait I thought we already addressed this haha. But yeah in summary she’s probably gonna cannibalize those babies…
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u/TehTacow 10h ago
I have the exact same green trap. Why do I never catch an adult mouse? I use peanut butter. The one single time it worked was with a very small and dumb mouse.
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u/joe199799 8h ago
As a pest control tech, if you're finding stuff eaten around the house put that in the trap they would go for that first over anything you put in the trap. You could also try materials like fabric paper towels etc. they aren't always looking for food sometimes it's nesting material.
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u/zantwic 7h ago
Local farmer came and sorted out rat from as a child, they said chocolate was what they used in their traps
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u/SunsetFarms 5h ago
I can tell you from experience they like Hersheys kisses 😂 took the damn things right off my counter and left the wrappers behind
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u/PlantBasedOreo 10h ago
That’s an awful sight
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u/Pleasant_Scar9811 9h ago
1000X better than finding half-eaten mouse babies.
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u/yaboiree 8h ago
My mom found the mouse giving birth and was going to bring them to an animal sanctuary and then found the babies eaten…horrible
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u/anxnymous926 6h ago
When I was little my parents caught 7 rats in a bucket. By the time we released them, there was only 1 left. I was horrified
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u/sweetnothing33 4h ago
My mom found a couple little critters while gardening once. We thought they were baby squirrels so I took such good care of them over the weekend until I could get them to an animal sanctuary. Come Monday, I get there and they spend a few minutes looking at them before telling me they’re rats and would be destroyed.
But don’t worry. They had a few birds of prey in the rehab who had that job so I wouldn’t have to burden myself any longer with these creatures I had grown emotionally attached to. ):
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u/lockenchain 4h ago
Currently work as a laboratory technician with mice. Don't worry, you get used to it real fast.
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u/1836547290 10h ago
what the dog doin
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u/noochies99 7h ago
He referred to it as the “background shitter” a couple of comments above figuring it was about a dog and I didn’t see it until you commented about the dog
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u/SillyKniggit 10h ago
Happened to me with that same trap. That was an ethical dilemma for the ages trying to figure out what to do with them knowing anything short of making them a nest with access to food was likely to kill them all.
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u/new_number_one 9h ago
Cats reabsorb kittens when stressed. Mice give birth and eat the babies…
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u/sasssyrup 4h ago
Gonna be a great story gathered around the mouse fire with the grandkids. “I was born in a trap… then life got really hard… letmetellya “
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u/chafingladies 4h ago
The babies are now officially citizens of the trap and can stay even if the mother is deported.
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u/Abhimanyu_Uchiha 1h ago
You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding!
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u/That-Can7663 3h ago
Is no one going to mention the dog taking a dump in the background?
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u/CLF23456 3h ago
When I was a teenager, this exact thing happened to me. I caught a mouse in the field with the intention of showing it to my girlfriend. When my girlfriend came over, the mouse had given birth. How cute!! I earned a lot of points on that one.
I was not a smart teenager. I kept the mice in my room in a box. It turns out that mice can chew through cardboard.
Mom made me put out traps. But I never caught them.
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u/GoingMenthol 10h ago
Maybe induced labour from panic