Customer Reviews

Victor M038 Easy Set Mouse Trap, 4-Pack

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(38)

 

 

My experience with these traps clearly explains the wide range of satisfaction with these traps.

I bought a four pack of these and set them up blocking a known mouse path. Then i waited. And then i waited some more. Then after about two days i happened to see a mouse walk across one of the traps as though it were a conveniently placed bridge.

Evidently, i had not set up the traps properly. So, i tested them. And yep, sure enough i could throw the trap against a wall without setting it off . It would have taken 206 mice standing atop of one another to set this thing off. So i took a second look at it. The wire was hooked in the wrong place on the cheese. I was setting the trap, flipping the cheese up, and hooking the wire. WRONG. You have to set the trap, put the wire in place, and then flip the cheese up.

But then i had another problem that several others have written about here- when i flipped the cheese onto the wire the trap was stupid sensitive. If it didn't go off on my fingers, it would go off immediately when i tried to set it down. Now to be fair, i didn't try standing real still, holding it in my hand and waiting to see if a mouse would have climbed up my leg and across my arm for a piece of plastic cheese. That might have worked. So i gave it a quick look again, and for the life of me i couldn't see anywhere else to hook the darn thing. I knew that if it was designed to be set up either of the ways i had come up with- it was the worst invention of the decade.

So i got on here to see if i was the only fool in the world that couldn't set a flippin mouse trap. Sure enough i wasn't. But at the same time, i read all the positive reviews and knew that us naysayers had to be missing something. When i looked at the Amazon image of the properly set up mouse trap my error became apparent: IF THE MOUSE TRAP IS TOO SENSITIVE- TO THE POINT OF BEING IMPOSSIBLE TO SET UP- YOU ARE RAISING THE CHEESE TOO HIGH WHEN YOU HOOK IT. I was hooking it in exactly the right place, but i was hooking it on the wrong angle. By raising the cheese more than about 30 degrees, it won't catch on the tab even if you release it very slowly. So in short, 1)Pull the spring trap back 2)Lay the hook all the way down on top of the spring 3)Slowly lift the cheese up just to the point it catches on the hook

These work like a charm... if you figure out how to set them up. It's embarrassingly simple, but by the number of negative reviews; Victor invented a mouse trap that should have come with instructions; not because it's hard to set up, but because it's easy to set up wrong.

It is a piece of junk that snaps down on your finger or just triggers off on its own.........It certainly is a step backwards from the metal traps.......in essence in the 21 Century they still haven't invented a BETTER MOUSE TRAP.........

I disagree with the reviewer who states that one side of the yellow plastic bait seat is not sensitive.
Thes things cannot be set unless you have the hands of a surgeon and set them "in place"
Then...if you do get it set after several attempts, then walk softly or as you walk away, the trap will go off.

I am having trouble finding the original metal bait seat version which is perplexing.
Why would they replace something that works perfectly with something that is
Absolute junk!...?

Forgive the annoyed tone of this....I just finished the tenth attempt to set one of these ridiculous things under a sink cabinet, where it is nescessary to set it THEN move it into place.

Not possible with these yellow bait seats.

The plastic part on the trap is not as good as the metal ones. The yellow plastic thing doesn't hold the stay wire, and half the traps can't be set. Look for the ones with the metal bait area, not sure if Victor is making those anymore or what, but these new ones are junk.

if you want to keep your mice fat & happy, this is the trap to get. nothing fattens up a mouse more than a great buffet table. i bought eight traps, three would not engage, three "snapped" but caught no mice, but they enjoyed the peanut butter. one did not "snap", but all of the peanut butter was gone, and another one did not "snap" but most of the bait was taken.....do not waste your $$ on these; unless you love mice......

I just moved to a new house that has a large mouse problem. I bought this 4-pack of these new-fangled plastic pedal modified traps that differ from the older tried and true Victor Mouse Trap. As the other reviewers have already noted, this "improvement" reduces its effectiveness. My old models are still at the other house and I don't know where they are located. I enjoy the practice of putting score marks on the backs of the devices to count the number of kills that each one has to its credit; sort of like what flying aces would do to record the number of kills they made in their air battles. Of course, you can't do this if you follow the recommendation of the supplier by throwing the device away after one use. Certainly they have a valid health reason to support such a recommendation but, of course, their main reason is they want to sell you more traps.

The problem with this new design is that the plastic pedal is so large that it abutts right next to the fly bar that snaps the rodent. It doesn't take much intrusion inside the kill area to set the device into action. A single toe might be all that is necessary to activate it leaving the mouse's head completely in the clear of the danger zone. With the new design, I had a total of ten snaps with no results and decided I needed to make a change. In this review I describe a way to modify the device so that it is much more effective. After this engineering modification, I immediately got a kill on the very next try. Of course this modification might void the device's waranty but for two bucks, what could I lose?

Take a pair of wire cutters or heavy duty scissors and cut the plastic pedal so that it is no wider than the plastic latch box that is used to hold the retainer bar (built into the pedal). Next, shorten the pedal so that it is about 40% shorter than it was. You should leave enough space so that the little round hole that is about in the center of the original plastic pedal has about 2~3mm of plastic around it. This forces the rodent to move his little head inside the kill zone so that he can smell and nibble at the bate. Otherwise, the rodent can get off with little more than a very bad nose bleed. Now deploy the Rev B modification and see your kill count go up.

One thing I should say in defense of using plastic over metal in the latch box is that the friction coefficient between the plastic and the metal retainer bar is lower than it is with metal against metal. This makes it more sensitive and more likely to trigger. This is good because the metal surfaces are more likely to get corroded making the device fail to trigger. Let me also say that the mouse traps are not as dangerous as some of the "scardy-cats" writing reviews indicate. When I was a kid I used to snap my fingers for the fun of it just to feel the pain and see how much stronger my fingers are than a mouse's head. I never seriously injured myself doing this but I don't recommend it. Now the rat traps are a different story. I am sure they can break bones. Be careful with them as you would a fire arm. Good luck and I hope this information helps someone.

I set the trap in place without any problem. It should be handled with care. The locking bar has a firm setting (left side) and sensitive sitting (far right). The instructions state no bait required. Yet, I placed a small, peas-size amount of home-made peanut butter in the nook on the pedal.

Within about an hour, the trap activated. The eerie aspect is that I heard mouse squeaks and movement thereafter. A short while later, I found the mouse in the trap with its leg and tail trapped. So, I had to deal with discarding the live mouse.

Warning! This trap should not be used around children. Further, it should be placed in a location where it cannot be accidentally triggered by bare feet or fingers. The spring appears powerful enough to cause severe inquiry.

I've had a lot of experience using these and I don't like them. They are so poorly made that half are impossible to set, because the bar that attaches to the bait paddle wasn't installed correctly. Sometimes you can bend it and get it to work, but then it may or may not be sensitive enough to activate when a mouse touches the paddle. I've gone back to the store, and bought more, thinking it was a bad lot, but have had the same problem over and over. Forget baitless, the traps still need to be baited. I recommend smearing peanut butter across the paddle. After throwing away the half that can't be set, the remaining ones do catch mice, but I recommend buying the traditional snap trap with a metal bait petal. Victor still sells them on their website, and recently Home Depot started selling them. They are actually much easier to set and of a recent package of four, all four set easily, and each one caught mice.

All of those reviewers who claim that these traps are too sensitive or not sensitive enough need to realize that you can set it to be as sensitive as you want. The yellow cheese shaped trigger has an adjustable range of motion, so depending on how much you engage the lever mechanism determines how sensitive the trap is. Come on, the traps are made by Victor, a company that has been making mouse traps since 1890. Do you think they would put out a bad product?

Whoever designed this piece of garbage should repeatedly have their thumbs smashed, because that's what's going to happen to anyone who tries to set this piece of junk.