How Many Mouse Traps Should I Use?

Ah, the big debate: how many mouse traps do you need to remove all mice within a residential property?

The answer is: however many you need.

That’s not really a helpful response, right? Don’t worry; we have tips to help you work it out.

To start with, you’ll need to make a note of everywhere in the house or building that you have seen evidence of a mouse infestation. Those are the places that mice are already frequenting, so those are the best places to first set your traps.

Traps should be set along the wall, and not in the center of the room. You’ll have no chance of trapping a mouse with a trap that’s not against the edges of a room.

One trap is not enough; try two traps side-by-side. Homeowners regularly note mice jumping over the trap, taking the bait as they do so, but without getting captured. If you have two traps next to each other, this is less likely to happen.

Do you see a lot of poop? If you have a lot of it, you’ll need more traps. Lots of mouse droppings is usually a sign that you have more than one mouse. In fact, just seeing a mouse is usually a sign that you have more than one mouse — they are sociable animals that never live alone. The average one adult mouse will create 80 or so droppings in one 24 hour period.

It is better to start with more traps on the first night than it is to set a couple of traps and add more later on. The longer the process goes on for, the more the rodents will breed. Once you’ve started to reduce the number of that particular group, the males and females will come together in a frenzy, attempting to reproduce at a quicker rate to bring the number right back up again. Attempting the trapping process slowly will result in a longer and more complicated job, and more of a cleanup operation, too.

How many traps do you need? It all depends on your particular property and problem. If you’ve only seen minimal mouse activity, you could have just a couple of traps in that room. If you’ve seen mouse activity in more than one room, you’re going to want at least two traps in each room that you’ve seen it in. If you can get away with having more traps than that — safely — especially adopting the two side-by-side approach, even better. The more you have, the quicker you’ll get rid of the critters.