Havahart 1020 Live Animal Two-Door Mouse Cage Trap

by Havahart

Product Features

• Constructed of sturdy rust-resistant wire mesh with steel reinforcements for long life and galvanized for maximum resistance to rust and corrosion
• Mesh openings help prevent escapes and stolen bait. Trigger rod is located outside of the trap so animal cannot damage it while in the trap
• Two gravity-action doors allow an animal to enter from either direction; sensitive trigger ensures quick, secure capture
• Solid door and handle guard protect the user during transportation, while smoothed internal edges protect and prevent injuries to animals
• Ideal for catching: mice, shrews, and similar-size nuisance animals

Product Details

User Guide [PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 10 x 3 x 3 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000DINGG
• Item model number: 1020
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (185 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #462 in Patio, Lawn & Garden (See Top 100 in Patio, Lawn & Garden)
  • #25 in Patio, Lawn & Garden > Pest Control > Traps

Product Description

Ideal for trapping mice, chipmunks, shrews, voles, and similar-size nuisance animals. The Havahart two-door cage trap has been designed for the safety of animals. This humane trap, with its two spring loaded doors, has many features to allow safe, quick and easy catches. Constructed of sturdy wire mesh with steel reinforcements for long life, and galvanized for maximum resistance to rust and corrosion. Mesh openings are smaller than competing traps of comparable size to prevent escapes and stolen bait. Two gravity-action doors allow animals to enter from either direction. Sensitive trigger ensures quick, secure capture. Solid door and handle guard protect user during transportation, while smoothed internal edges protect and prevent injuries to animals. Made in the USA.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Efficient, Long Lasting, Humane, September 26, 2007

By 

pinxet "pinxet" (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Havahart 1020 Live Animal Two-Door Mouse Cage Trap (Lawn & Patio)

About 15 years ago, our apartment building began having occassional mouse problems, with my own apartment receiving 2 or 3 visits from a stray little fellow each year. I was truly appalled to see some of the more modern solutions in the stores -- I'd always had a problem with the idea of the traditional spring traps and poisons, but the houses containing sticky-bottomed floors seemed unduly cruel. I don't want to kill the little SOBs, let alone torture them; I just don't want them as roommates.

The Havahart live trap is a good, humane, cost effective solution to it all. The mechanism is a simple bait-table connected to a set of two thick and sturdy exterior wires which -- on a new trap -- trips very easily (a bit of delicate, deft handling of the exterior wires is needed to get the trap to not spring closed during setup -- those with large fingers will have a difficult time with it I would think). Following capture and release, a good cleaning in a bucket of bleach, well rinsed, and the trap is ready to go again.

For the more romatically inclined, there's a good feeling to be had in preparing a Wine & Cheese Platter (actually, I use toilet tissue and peanut butter) in my attempts to be a good host to the occasional visit from Mr. Mouse. The trap works well enough that normally I see no evidence of a mouse in my kitchen prior to him appearing in the trap -- over the years, I've come to regard the visitors less as disease-ridden destructive vermin, and more as a cute if unkempt old friend who gives me a good excuse to swab the kitchen in bleach.

I normally replace traps every five or six years, and not because they break or become non-functional-- Over time, the trap tends to get a funky dark tarnished patina which is simply too unattractive to my eye. With reasonable care, these traps can be a one-time purchase which need no replacement.

Aesthetic loss aside, after a year or so of use, it helps to oil the moving parts of the trap -- without this, it's possible for the mouse to enter the trap, steal the bait, and leave without tripping the mechanism. Be careful also of too heavy-handed handling of the trap when cleaning -- although sturdy enough, the walls of the cage can be bent with a bit of pressure, which will prevent easy movement of the doors and bait-table.

This is, to my mind, one of those superior products which one always returns to. Whoever crafted the phrase "build a better mousetrap" never saw one of these. It's cheap, it's permanent, it works.

UPDATE: 10/13/11

Many of the reviews for this product justifiably criticise the hair-trigger action of this trap, and the difficulty in setting it up without having it spring.

Since I wrote this review, my workaround for the problem has been to wrap a small swatch of transparent scotch tape around either of the external trip-wires (connecting to either the bait table, or to the bent wire leading to the door). The objective is to make one of the two thin trip-wires slightly thicker so the they can balance more comfortably on each other. I generally don't need to continue this after the trap has some use/cleaning/light banging around or is otherwise not new from the box.

Hope this helps.

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great trap, February 9, 2008

By 

J. Lemmerman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Havahart 1020 Live Animal Two-Door Mouse Cage Trap (Lawn & Patio)

(NOTE: this product rates a 5 if modified as suggested below. Without the simple modification, it can become lethal to the mice.)

________________

I am catching a mouse a day in our school. We name the mice like hurricanes, and we have gone thru the alphabet twice in 6 months! (We collect the mice in a hamster cage and release each Friday, using a DEEP painter's bucket and toilet paper cores for transfer, in case you're interested).

I love this thing (actually I bought two).

I had to make one minor modification - the lower edge of the trap door is very sharp - the mice try to push under and cut their noses - I added a piece of clear tape across the lower edge of each trap door to cover the edge and -- SHAZAM--, its now perfect.

Advice for the novice - when you release the mice (far from home or into a DEEP bucket), hold the door closest to you closed - the first time I unlocked both doors and the mouse instinctively ran out the upper door and up my arm. LOL

65 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Falsely advertised as a Rat Trap, April 30, 2009

By 

F. Whitby (Salt Lake City, UT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Havahart 1020 Live Animal Two-Door Mouse Cage Trap (Lawn & Patio)

The Havahart 1020 is advertised here as a Mouse and Rat trap. This incorrectly suggests that this trap is large enough to trap rats. As the written instructions for the product clearly state, this is a mouse trap and the next larger size (1025) is a rat trap. My rats are happy to crawl in, reach all the way to the back of the cage (in one-door mode) and eat the bait and wriggle out again because they are large enough to keep the door propped open the entire time. This trap is not useful for trapping rats. This product (1020) is a MOUSE trap, NOT a rat trap. My rat trapping is thus delayed in waiting for what turns out to be an inappropriate trap.