GIDDY UP! This trap is the real deal. Let me give you a little background first. So I live sandwiched between a cemetery and a park with a creek so mice are a constant. Like CONSTANT. My German Shepherd has become afraid of them, it’s such an issue. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not overrun, but there seems to always be a mouse I need to deal with. Wait, is that overrun? Ugh, I don’t even know anymore. I’m losing my mind here. SOMEHOW, they’re getting around the glue traps (which I’m not a huge fan of, because they’re not humane but I’m desperate here, folks) which I largely use flat, under the front of the stove...like seriously, underneath the entire front of the stove is papered with flat glue traps. And they’re getting past them! How? (We see them, they come and go from under the stove and somehow MISS the glue traps?!?) You may be wondering, WTH, why do mice like this house, has she thought to *deter* the mice? I have indeed. My dog food is in a plastic bin so they’re no longer coming for that. I don’t leave dog food in her bowl, I only put food in her bowl when she flips it over (lol, this is how we communicate lol), there is zero food on the floor - ZERO. Not even a crumb. And I keep open food (like cookies, snacks, etc) in Lock & Lock containers, so they’re not coming for that. Bread is also in a Lock & Lock. I don’t know why this is happening. But I don’t know much of anything anymore. These mice are making me crazy. So, you get my frustration. I ordered these bad boys, because I hate wooden mouse traps and I’m wary of gimmicky traps. This thing looks like it could cut the mouse in half. VENGEANCE IS MINE, YOU FILTHY BEASTS! So, I put peanut butter on my finger tip (I have small fingers, so that helps) and rubbed it deep down in that bait trap well, down to the bottom and around the edges so a mouse would really have to make an effort to get to it, not just hover over the trap like they’re suspended from wires in Mission Impossible or something to get a taste. Now, time to set. I don’t advise setting the trap til you’re close to the place you want to put it because this baby has a hair trigger, and you’re gonna have to carefully hold it open as you get it to where you’re going (at least I did, because I was scared to death of this thing going off in my hand). You can really feel the strength of the trap as you press back on the lever, because the spring is so tight, and you can definitely imagine that any mouse who gets in the way of the jaws of this thing won’t have a chance. So I put this trap right up against the baseboard under the cabinet, next to the stove, assuming that a sneaky mouse could be using that route to get in and out of the kitchen. Of course, this is just the theory of a lowly old college-educated person who’s trying to out-think a rodent with a brain the size of a pea, at best. I don’t know if I’m winning this war, folks, because it sure doesn’t feel like it. It feels like no matter how many mice I kill, there is always another one to take their place. I mean, I kill one or two a week, I guess? That seems like a lot. I don’t know, maybe it’s not, given where I live, given the weather, I don’t know, I just don’t know anything anymore. I’m definitely battle-tested. But I’m weary. I feel like I’m losing the will to fight these filthy bastards. Anywho, less than 24 hours later, VICTORY! I was alerted to this when my dog, a 78-pound German Shepherd, headed toward the kitchen for a drink and then stopped dead in her tracks, and immediately spun around and quickly went in the other direction and upstairs to hide from whatever she had seen. I loathe to say “run” because she’s my beloved pet and I don’t want to embarrass her on a public forum but it wasn’t her finest moment, let’s leave it at that. I knew what she must have seen. ONE OF THEM. But so soon?!? I had set that trap less than 24 hours ago. No way. Yes way! And as I had predicted, that trap’s spring mechanism was so strong that the intensity of the trap snapping on the mouse had flipped the trap onto its side and moved it a few inches over. Huzzah! I am disposing of the whole *thing* however, although I guess one could release the mouse from the trap (gag) and then clean the trap (yikes). That’s not my cup of tea, though. I’m weary, folks. Don’t make me start CLEANING mousetraps on top of everything else. Just don’t. Please. I will definitely be getting more. (I have to, I throw them away when it catches a mouse, so in my case, it’s a good business model for them.)
