Fixman 197512 Mouse Cage Trap 250 x 90 x 90 mm

A very good mousetrap in my opinion. I caught 10 mice in two days. Only one or two to go, hopefully. You probably have more mice than you think.It is a good cage for mice, as the hook is a good distance from the entrance, and they should not have enough time to react (but they are quick). The cage is strong enough for mice, although at least one tried to bite through the metal cage (good luck!), but it might be a bit small and flimsy for rats.Here are my suggestions for safe and effective use.Make sure the hook with the food on is firmly linked to the lever that releases to close the door, so it will not set the trap off too easily. Set the trap on level ground, so the mouse won’t bump into the cage and set off the trap when entering or leaving.Put some peanut butter on the hook, as this is one of their favourite foods and is sticky. Don’t place too much on that they can carry away for later consumption. Mice eats in bouts of small snacks so if the food is sticky enough, they will not be able to remove all the food for later consumption, and they may enter the cage multiple times. You might put some different food at the back of the cage (I put some in an ice cube container) of peanut butter with cereal grains embedded to give them a second chance of setting off the trap by brushing their bodies against the hook.Use something like a kitchen knife to ‘butter’ the hook with the food. Ideally wear latex gloves when handling the cage so mice don’t pick up your scent too much. They also don’t like to feed where a dominant mouse has been before. Buy more than one cage as mice like to feed from different locations in multiple bouts as already mentioned.Let the mouse out a least half a mile away. Even this may not be enough apparently. Close up their entry points. In my case, I covered the airbricks in mesh and I filled a couple of small entry points where the wood had rotted in a door frame with wire wool. They also apparently don’t like peppermint, so you can use that to keep them out of key areas like kitchens and bedrooms.Hope this helps!

I put the trap down in the kitchen in the evening of the day I received it, using a tiny fragment of cheddar as bait, coated in peanut butter and Nutella. It is very easy to set and I did not feel in danger of sustaining an injury. Then I went upstairs, intending to go to bed. While still in the bathroom I heard the trap close. So I went down to investigate and found a dear little mouse looking up at me, apprehensive but unharmed. Although it was ten pm and raining I knew I could not leave it there all night, even though the cage is quite roomy and there was no danger it could chew its way out. I was not going to go three miles with it, however, so I let the mouse out on the far side of the churchyard next to the fields. It hesitated and then scurried away. Job done. I set the trap again, just in case of friends or relatives. It needed no new bait, so it was easy, but I did not expect any further takers that night. I went upstairs and unscrewed the top of the toothpaste and... Yes: dear little mouse number two. Equally cute, but slightly less welcome. A second walk to the churchyard, but at least it had stopped raining by then. I set the trap again, but I decided any additional bait-nibblers would have to spend the night in the cells. And there the trap remains, but no new sightings of mice or evidence of their presence or of a nest of babies. Worth five stars, certainly. It is very much nicer to see a mouse looking up at you with its beady eyes while it is still alive, rather than looking at you accusingly with its neck crushed, even if you have to take it for a walk in the dark. I put the trap with its occupant in a shopping bag while I walked through the village, just in case I met anyone, but I saw no one either time. I hope the mice got away safely.

Brilliant product!Caught three mice on three consecutive days. A little fiddly to set up, as trigger is very sensitive, but easy enough with a little patience. Have given 4 stars rather than 5, because the spring was so tight, the trapdoor shut with too much force, and I was concerned that it cause injury to a mouse, if triggered before the mouse had fully entered the trap. So I stretched the spring a little, to reduce the tension, and it worked a treat.Would buy again.

WARNING - trap killed mouse and not humanely. This trap is designed to catch mice alive and it did that twice and we released them. The third time it went horrifically wrong. The trap sprung early and the metal door crushed the mouse's back. We came downstairs to find a still alive mouse with a broken back. We bought this trap because we didn't want to kill a mouse. Instead we gave it an agonising death. We feel guilt-ridden beyond belief. A kill trap would have been more merciful. I take responsibility for the fact that the lever wasn't as far back on the spring mechanism as it could be and the trap was infront of a box so the mouse didn't have a clear run. However, no live mouse trap should have such a literally fatal design flaw and if it does it should state that there is a risk of this happening. We bought a different trap and instructions said we should check the trap every 2 hours as there was a risk of suffocation. If it hadn't warned us we would have been complacent about checking the trap. The Fixman trap came with no instructions. If it had a warning about the risk of injury to mice we would have religiously checked that the trigger was as far back as it could be. We bought 3 Fixman traps and this one may have been slightly faulty because when the door closed there was a gap where the mouse could escape and ironically when I released the lever to test it the door didn't come down like it should have. Please, if you buy this trap and set it, give it a test to see that the trigger isn't too loose.