How to Make Homemade Mouse Traps

If you have a mouse in the house, don't expect it to leave on its own. Wild rodents are perfectly happy living inside human homes, mostly because of readily obtainable food items they find there.
Traditional mouse traps are torture chambers, since they often don't kill the rodents caught by them -- at least, not right away. Commercial traps made to humanely catch mice can be expensive. You can make a mousetrap that is highly effective, kind to the animal, and requires only a few recycled items almost everyone has around the house.

Things You'll Need

• Empty toilet paper tube
• Empty 5-gallon bucket
• Cardboard rectangle approximately 6" by 24"
• Tape
• Cracker
• Peanut butter

Instructions

1. 

   Remove the lid from a 5-gallon bucket, and place it close to the last place that you spotted a mouse. Try to set it against a wall or piece of furniture so that it won't move.

2. 

   Cut a piece of cardboard to make a rectangle about 6 by 24 inches. Fold the cardboard about six inches from one end. Hold it against the bucket and position it so the fold meets the bucket's rim and the end extends over the inside of the bucket. This will serve as a platform where you will be placing bait.

3. 

   Crease and fold the toilet paper tube sharply along its entire length. Fold another sharp crease in the tube, about an inch from the first one, to form a tunnel.

4. Put about 1/4 tsp of peanut butter on a piece of cracker. Place the cracker on the flattened bottom, just inside one end of the tunnel.

5. 

   Set the baited tunnel on the cardboard platform over the inside of the bucket. Place it so that the baited end extends two or three inches beyond the edge of the cardboard platform, balancing directly above the inside of the bucket. The mouse will smell the bait, quickly figure out that the ramp will take him to it, and travel through the tunnel. When the mouse reaches the bait, its weight will cause the tunnel to drop into the bucket.

6. Load the bucket and mouse in it into your car and drive several miles from your house. Release the little guy in an area that's wooded or provides immediate cover, near a fresh water source such as a lake or pond.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't touch the mouse, and don't stick your hand inside the bucket with the mouse in it. Mice can jump quite well.

• Wild mice do not make decent pets. They bite, and are well known to carry fleas, parasites and diseases that are dangerous for humans.

Resources

• Excellent Green Site