Poison baits pose risks to children, pets, adults and non-target animals. Furthermore, I don’t think that anyone wants their pet to find one of these dead poisoned rodents and play with it or choose it as an appetizer, thereby potentially creating a funeral for one of your very much loved pets. Another problem associated with poison baits is that this filthy rodent will crawl inside a hole somewhere and die in your home, business or other structure and begin to decompose which can create unimaginable odors and attract insects as well.

Using a live trap confuses me to insanity. Live traps capture these disease-transmitting creatures but do not harm them in any way. Once captured you are forced to make a choice, you must kill it yourself or you may simply set it free again, which is   where the insanity takes over. If you choose to set it free in your backyard, you are basically inviting this disease infested critter back inside yours or your neighbors home, business or other structure and I don’t recommend setting it free in your neighbors yard even if you don’t like them. In the end you may catch the same rodent over and over again, all the while, it is a source of reproduction, creating many babies inside your home, business or other structure. I don’t recommend feeding them to your pet snake or other flesh-eating pets because of the diseases they can transmit or the potential that the rodent may have ingested some poison. Having said all of that leaves you now with the second option of killing this filthy rodent yourself. Most people do not want their body anywhere them nor do they want to deal with the task of killing it.  A flush down the old toilet has in many cases proven that they can swim, hold their breath and that they can and will resurface in your toilet wet and hungry.  Some people may not have a problem with killing them. As a personal choice, I prefer the trap to complete the job and not give me another chore related to these uninvited invaders. On another note, I recall watching a news broadcast a few years back in which an individual was caught on video beating a rat to death with his broom, and yes, he was charged with animal cruelty. The main point is this, you need to trap it and kill it simultaneously, dispose of it, and repeat the process until your environment is rodent free.

Glue traps can only be used once and are sometimes not effective if the rodent is only partially caught in the glue. I have seen mice and rats drag these traps away and or chew their own legs off to set themselves free, thereby creating a bloody trail for you to clean up, if it can be cleaned at all. Imagine that on your new carpet. Now remember that these rats and mice are disease carriers and transmitters and you now have to come in contact with their blood which could also be contaminated.

Live traps with a drowning attachment can be bulky, expensive and require sanitation for obvious cleanliness and health reasons. As a personal choice, I prefer not to handle or clean these types of traps. You must also consider that the rodent enters one end of the trap, becomes trapped, then it must crawl through a tunnel and fall or jump to a certain slow drowning death which may take from minutes to hours. Keep in mind that rodents don’t like to swim, however, they can and will tread water as long as they possibly can.

THE BOTTOM LINE!!!!

Snap traps are very inexpensive, least troublesome, extremely effective and by far are the most popular. You can use them repeatedly or dispose of them and purchase another. I have used many brands, including the cheap 3-4 packs sold in dollar stores. All of the traps were effective if configured as described in the ultimate solution. Some of the cheapies I’ve tried have actually trapped me on occasion. I will forewarn you now, occasionally some of the cheapies can have an inherent problem. Either the spring is too strong or the nails and or staples retaining the spring or other parts are too weak and the trap actually flies apart in your hands as you attempt to set it, thereby resulting in instantaneous intense pain, followed by descriptive LOUD profanity and or other obscene language and gestures while doing the not so pretty pain dance and then finally a few laughs after the throbbing subsides. I can only say one word about some of the cheapies, CAUTION, so I strongly prefer the brand name traps. I will also tell you that I do not buy the traps that have the fake cheese on the trigger mechanism. DUHHHHHHHHHH, some people think you don’t need to bait this type of trap. HELLOOOOOOO, unless that fake cheese is scented to attract the rodent, you just bought another dust collector and you may even qualify for a check up from the neck up if you use them without bait. You will also note that using my proven tactic, that the cheese is totally inappropriate.