If you see one mouse in your home, you’re going to have more mice in your home. Mice are not solitary animals, and they don’t live alone. They come as part of a group, usually with one male and a few females, all of which he’ll breed with. They’ll live together in a nice and cozy nest, along with his many children. And that male can have a lot of children! A female can have as many as 10 or 11 litters in one year, and each litter can have as many as 12 pups. We’ll let you do the math ...

Regardless of the mouse trap-type you choose, remember to buy more than one. In fact, we recommend that you buy as many as you can reasonably and sensibly buy.

If you have kids and pets ...

The traditional snap traps are not good for little paws or fingers, so we don’t recommend using them in areas where children and animals are also present. Electronic mouse traps can help in this situation, although you must still ensure that the pets/kids can’t get access because of the still-present disease threats.

If you’d rather look for a slightly less electronic style, you can purchase traditional snap traps in plastic containers, enclosing them. These traps are, sadly, not often reusable, making them very expensive for a big infestation. You could consider using closed-in traps in areas that the children/animals are present, but switch to cheaper, traditional snap traps for the areas that they are not, such as the attic.

If you have a big infestation ...

If you see mice a lot, or have noticed a lot of chewing/mouse droppings/staining left by urine or mouse fur, you’ve probably got quite a large infestation on your hands. We recommend using traditional snap traps in this case, because they are the cheapest and most effective option. The mice can’t reproduce once they are dead, and the snap trap has always been known as the most successful culling method. Consider using two mouse traps side by side, or perhaps even three if you can manage it. Plastic snap traps tend to be single-use, but wooden, older-style traps can be thoroughly cleaned and then reused, making them a more cost-effective solution.

If you want a non-lethal outcome ...

We don’t recommend the use of repellents for mouse control, but you could consider looking at a catch-and-release approach. You capture the mice in live cage traps, travel a fair distance from your building, and then release the mice back into the world.

There are many problems with this:

• You will need to travel at least five or ten miles away from the property to release the mouse.
• You might not capture more than one mouse at a time, meaning lots of repeated five-to-ten-mile trips.
• Mice are very cautious and tend to avoid live cage traps.
• Mice that are released into the wild once captured in residential areas don’t survive long. Many of them will never have spent a single day in a rural-type habitat, so won't be prepared for predators and other concerns.

Lethal mouse control does prove to be the most effective solution, with snap-traps offering best results.

If you’re squeamish ...

If you don’t want to deal with an actual dead mouse or the mess that can come hand-in-hand with traditional snap traps, electronic mouse traps can “zap” the mouse to death. These are usually closed-in, box-style traps, keeping the problem contained and out of sight, but care should be taken when purchasing. There are a lot of cheaply-made devices on the market that don’t actually kill the rodent, but instead maim it.

If you don’t want to use traps at all ...

Glue strips are a slightly different approach to mouse control, although it’s not an approach that we would personally recommend. Glue strips don’t kill the mouse, but instead cause the animal to become stuck and panicked. As the animal panics, it causes itself great injury, even tearing flesh from bone in a bid to free itself. It is not uncommon for rodents to gnaw through limbs to break free from glue strips, and you are also likely to see a lot of little clumps of fur on them.

Glue traps are not safe to be used around children or pets, and are renowned for catching all sorts of things alongside your target animal.