The Best Way to Catch a Mouse

Mice in a home pose several threats that make people want to remove the mice as soon as possible. Mice that are allowed to linger in the walls of a home can chew on insulation and electrical wiring, which creates a fire hazard. When mice have access to the food in the pantry, the mice can eat through the packaging and spoil food as well as create small piles of food that will attract insects.

People will try many different methods to trap and remove mice including investing in a cat for the home. While cats make great house pets, there is no guarantee that the cat you choose will be effective at catching mice. Remember that mice are extraordinarily fast and difficult to catch. Some cats have as many problems tracking down a mouse as humans do. That is why it is best to use traps and an effective system to catch a mouse.


There are many different designs of mouse traps available, but they are all either lethal or non-lethal traps. Lethal traps kill the mouse when it is caught and non-lethal traps capture the mouse and allow it to be released outside the home.

Lethal traps are straightforward, but non-lethal traps do require a bit of work. If you intend to catch and release a mouse, then release it several miles from your home or else it will get back into your home and you are back to square one. Avoid using poison to get rid of mice because poison takes time to work and the mouse could move back into your walls before it dies. If that happens, then the mouse will begin to smell and attract other scavengers.


People love to use cheese as mouse trap bait because that is what everyone is used to seeing in the movies. The most effective bait for a trap is any substance that gives off a strong scent that will attract the mouse. If you would like to use cheese, then use a soft cheese such as a brie that gives off a strong scent. A better bait would be peanut butter.

Blocking the Entrance

If one mouse found its way in to your home, then there is a pretty good chance that others will as well. Mice can come from anywhere including abandoned homes, open fields and garbage piles. The mouse is going to want to find a warm place to sleep and a steady supply of food, which is why it decides to live in your house. It can be difficult to block every possible mouse entrance to your home, but you can make your home a little more secure against mice with a little persistence and work.

Before you start patching holes to keep the mice out, you need to make sure all of the mice are out of your home. While it is certainly possible that mice have made their home in your house, many mice like to go back and forth between your home and the outside. Some mice find their food outside your home and come into your home for warmth. If you start blocking off entrances from the mice while they are still in your home, then you will starve the mice and they will die somewhere in your home. As we have discussed previously, this is not something you want.

Tracking down the mice in your home by listening for scratching noises in the walls and cupboards will accomplish two things. It will let you know if you still have mice to trap before you can block off the mice entrances to your home. Finding the mice will also show you all of the ways that they are entering your home. You may start filling in larger holes in the walls or cabinets only to find that the mice are using a small corner of a cupboard drawer to enter your home. Mice can squeeze into some very small spaces. The more comprehensive you are about your search to fill in mice entrances to your home, the better your chances of preventing the mice from getting back in.


There are effective ways to get rid of mice and then there are ineffective ways. We have already discussed why poison is a bad way to get rid of mice. Another equally as ineffective method is the sheets of sticky paper that some companies sell as mouse traps. The premise is that the mice will stick to the paper and then can be easily removed from the home. The problem is that these sticky sheets of paper wind up being extremely inhumane and effective. If the mouse is still alive when you are removing it from sticky paper, then you will hear the mouse scream in pain. A lethal trap kills a mouse instantly and a non-lethal trap is a great way to catch the mouse and let it live in someone else’s field.