Disposable vs Reusable Mouse Traps: Which One Is Best?

If you’ve ever had mice in your home before, you’ll probably already have a few mouse traps tucked away in the shed or cupboard under the sink. Traditional mouse control methods, the mouse trap is usually the approach that works better than any other, and there’s a reason it is the number one choice for smart homeowners and expert rodent control professionals across the world.

Most mouse traps are both reusable and disposable; it all depends on how you feel about the matter. If you’d rather throw away the trap, mouse still captured in it, replacing it with a brand new one out the packet, you can do just that. Traditional mouse traps are cheap enough to be able to do this providing you don’t have a very large infestation on your hands.

If you’re not overly squeamish and don’t want to keep buying mouse traps, feel free to reuse the ones that have already caught a mouse/mice. This is certainly the cheaper option, particularly with larger infestations and traps that repeatedly capture a lot of mice.

But what SHOULD you do? Reuse or replace?

In all honesty, it really doesn’t matter, although there are different pros and cons for each side of the debate. Reusing a trap that has already captured a mouse means that you’re using a trap that has already shown it works. That spot, that trap, and that bait works, so repeating the process should result in more captured mice. (Unless the first mouse-capture was purely a fluke.) Why would you want to change something that already works? Just check that it still works before setting it — the springs, etc. — and it should do just as good a job the second, third or even fourth time around.

Just bear in mind that a trap will only have so much of a life span. After so many traps, the effectiveness and strength of the motion could decrease, resulting in a trap that doesn’t completely finish the job.

Reusing old traps doesn’t just save you money; it also reduces the amount of packaging and waste that you have, making you more eco-friendly.

Mice are more likely to follow a path that has the scent of another mouse, because it makes that route ‘familiar’ to them. Sense of smell is incredibly important to mice and other rodents, and they use it in a wide variety of ways. Direction is just one of those ways, and a mouse will follow the scent of another mouse to see if there’s something new to know or see. A trap that has already captured another mouse will have that mouse’s scent on it, and also around it and leading up to it. A secondary mouse will follow that scent path, leading right to the trap. If the trap was a new one, it wouldn’t have those scent markings on or around it, and that can lead to extra cautiousness from the rodents.

It’s quite common for brand new traps NOT to catch anything for the first couple of nights, and this is because mice are very aware when something new has landed in their surroundings. This once again gives old, recycled mouse traps the upper hand. The rest of the mouse population will have become accustomed to the trap being where it was, and will react to it more positively when you remove the dead mouse and then put it back.

In reality, there is a lot to be said for recycling mouse traps, and it’s not just good news for your bank balance. There’s no need to go out and buy brand new traps time and time again, but if you’d rather not literally scrap the carcass of a dead rodent from the trap in order to use it again, we can understand and sympathize if you’d rather just replace them.