Can You Reuse a Mouse Trap?

Yes, you can reuse a mouse trap. In fact, reusing a mouse trap might be a good trick to use to encourage other mice within the group to take a closer look. Why don’t WE take a closer look at that ... ?

Homeowners ask us the same question when dealing with mice: do you throw the trap away once the mouse has been captured, or do you take the dead mouse off and use it again?

Our advice? Do whatever you’re happy with and what you can afford. Yes, you can reuse a mouse trap that has already been used to catch and kill a mouse, but it’s not an item that many people will relish the thought of touching. Removing the carcass of a dead mouse from the trap can be bad enough, without having to get up close and person trying to clean blood and other body parts away. In cases like this, feel free to buy plenty of mouse traps and then just throw them away once they are used. Being one of the cheapest forms of mouse control, you’ll usually find that you can get a large number of mouse traps in bulk for not a lot of money, and if you think you have a decent-sized infestation in your home or building, we recommend buying as many as you can.

Excessive? Yes.

Effective? Also, yes.

Do you need to clean a mouse trap before you reuse it?

There are two answers to this question. There is some evidence to support the idea that the pheromones or smell of the original, first dead mouse on the trap is enough to encourage further mice within the same/a different group to come and take a peek. However, there is also some evidence to support the idea that a mouse will avoid a trap once it sees the dead body of another dead mouse on it.

What do we recommend? Remove dead mice from traps as soon as you can, which means checking the traps themselves regularly, and give it a little rinse-down with an external hose pipe. You don’t want to wash every remaining particle of scent on the trap, because that is what might attract others. You probably don’t want to leave any ‘body remnants’ on the trap, though.