Customer Reviews

Victor M2524 Electronic Mouse Trap

5 star:		(171)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(54)

 

 

Okay, I read all these reviews, and expected some problems because of the 1-3 star users. But I really can't deal with the mess and unpredictable results of spring traps, or the unwelcomed surprise of running across a dead mouse somewhere when I least expect it (poison). And I am squeamish! I really wanted this thing to work.

So I called Victor (Woodstream Corp) and talked to someone in their Customer Care department. I asked her my favorite question, "Tell me all the tips that consumers are likely to miss, or misunderstand about how this thing works." And I also asked her tons of questions I had myself. Here is what I learned:

1. First and foremost, people overbait these traps BIGTIME. (See the 2nd photo provided by a customer.) If some of that huge mass of peanut butter falls onto the metal floor-plate, the trap zaps the peanut butter and de-activates! Mice can now come in and dine on the peanut butter. She said to just put a TINY dab of peanut butter on the far wall (opposite the entrance). Use a toothpick. Or spread a very thin smear of it with a knife. Mice have a very acute sense of smell, and that's what draws them in. They don't need any more bait than that.

2. The mouse has to contact BOTH metal plates in order to get zapped. And both plates have to be clean of debris. That means after you catch a mouse, take a Q-tip or whatever, and remove any hair, any little spot of urine, whatever, from the metal plates. This is not a squeamish job at all and they don't come anymore squeamish than I am! (I do shuddering freak-outs at the sight of a mouse, dead OR alive.) There was a teensy smear of liquid (I assume urine) and two hairs that had shed off the mouse.

3. Be aware that "On" means that the LINE icon side of the switch is pressed down. The CIRCLE icon pressed down means "off." People get those confused. Turn it OFF when cleaning or baiting. Turn it ON once the trap is baited, and the top door has been snapped shut.

4. The batteries go in with the flat side of the battery against the springs. And I have had battery connections with other things "not work." I had this problem continuously with a radio. Finally, it dawned on me, give a little pull on the springs. One was coiled into itself just slightly. That fixed it. You need the springs to push against the batteries enough to hold the two tight against each end. And they need to be lined up straight, not crooked.

5. When you bait the trap, close the door FIRMLY, and turn the unit on. You will see a green light BUT!!! it only stays on for 2 seconds! That green light is SUPPOSED to go off. It only goes on for the 2 seconds so that you can confirm that the unit is on, and it's working. Otherwise, if it stayed on all the time, it would eat battery life. So when it goes off, don't think, like I did, that there's an electronic failure.

6. For safety reasons, the unit is designed so that when the door (over the maze and metal plates) is open, the unit will de-activate. I have no idea how the other reviewer shocked himself, but for sure, turn the unit OFF before tinkering around with baiting, cleaning plates, or messing with the batteries. In any event, when you set the trap, bait it, then double check to make sure the door is snapped closed. Then, and only then, turn the unit on. You will see the green light for about 2 seconds, which shows you it's working and ready to go. Then the light goes out. If you open the door again (and she didn't say this but I have a feeling it's the case), turn the unit off and then on again after the door has been shut.

I LOVE these traps! I don't have to even LQQK at the mouse, let alone have my fingers anywhere near where the mouse can brush against them. Also, as much as I detest mice because they are creepy, foul, dirty, slithery little things who dart and crawl around in mucky places, I do not want to torture them! I know for a fact that three mice I caught with a snap trap had to have had pretty horrible deaths. One I heard for a solid hour, banging around, sometimes squeeling. The next morning it was dead, but it had been caught by its little nose, only! Pretty gruesome! This is much more HUMANE. It zaps them and within 5 seconds they are dead. I imagine during the 5 seconds, they are quickly rendered unconscious. This is 8,000 volts that goes into a critter that size. Quick and humane.

Oh, before I close this review? Product Guarantee!!!
If you DO have a trap malfunction after the return period allowed by your retailer, the woman told me that the company itself has a product guarantee of ONE YEAR. Keep your receipt and if anything goes wrong with the trap (obviously excluding your prying up the metal plates or whatever), they will take it back and send you a new one.

So my recommendation is the full 5 stars. I think their box-side instructions are not good enough. It says nothing about bait amount, and it says nothing about keeping the shock plates free of things like hair or droppings. It does explain the green light only stays lit for a short time, but I missed that. I'm sure others could too.

Lastly? My own advice: Get a strong flashlight and plug holes with steel wool inside cabinets, closets, anywhere you find them. Fine grade can be molded easier and tighter than coarse grade. Use silicone caulking in addition, or put it in cracks. Any mouse can crawl through a hole the size of a dime, and smaller mice can flatten out their bodies and get through 1/4" size crack! While they can chew through silicone caulking, one of the things that draws them in is the heat inside your house. (Bingo! Found that on google.) The caulking, or even expandable foam, can at least prevent them from sensing heat. Maybe even reduce their detecting the smell of food. Pay particular attention to holes cut for plumbing pipes. Stuff and caulk those, especially.

For trivia, a mouse can run 6 miles an hour, and sprint faster. It can only see 24" ahead of it, but can detect movement 45 feet away. They breed horrifically fast, I think it's 3 weeks old they can breed.
You now know everything I know about mice. And about these e-traps!

Found some mouse evidence in our garage, so I got this mouse trap.

Set the trap after getting home from work in the evening. Checked before bed and the light was flashing. Sure enough, 1 small dead mouse. I dispose of it and reset the trap. Check again in the morning and light was flashing again, and a tail was hanging out the back. This time it was a much larger field mouse. Dead mouse number 2 in about 12 hours!

No mess, no fuss, great product!

WHAT'S GOOD:
Because the trap/bait is enclosed I can put it places I normally can't because of dogs and cats. I never have to touch a mouse, just open the lid and dump. It's safe since when the lid is open the electrodes aren't energized. I have yet to have the bait stolen, without a mouse, and contrary to what other people have said, I was able to catch several mice on one set of batteries (4 months ~10+ mice and still going). Considering the pains of some of the cheaper traps, despite it's cost I think it's worth it.

WHAT TO PAY ATTENTION TO:
Like what one reviewer said, since the LED only blinks the 1st 24 hours after you catch a mouse you need to check the trap, otherwise it rots and sticks to the electrodes and it's just easier to throw away the trap. For some reason it's sensitive to the battery voltage tolerances. For instance putting new batteries in, it won't work, but put another set in it works fine. So if your first set of new batteries don't work, for giggles try another set.

Despite countless efforts in trying to find and plug-up every possible crack or hole where droves of mice were coming into my fixer-upper, plus all my research and efforts to eradicate the mice that got inside and propagated, these electronic traps have finally helped me win a two year long battle against these horrifically filthy and destructive vermin. I really had tried everything UNTIL I FINALLY BROKE DOWN AND PAID FOR TWO OF THESE ELECTRONIC MOUSE TRAPS which have proven to be the most INVITING and effective solution, And ADDITIONALLY, they're the most sanitary and least heebie-jeebies method to dispose of the dead vermin.
~Nonetheless, you can probably learn from what I eventually figured out ....
1): DO NOT make the mistake of thinking you've finally caught the last mouse and put these traps away too soon or forget to open them to check them because there will almost always be a mate, a few fledgling offspring, and several of their cold or hungry cousins that are seeking the way into your abode. ALSO, be sure to occasionally open the trap to double-check it if there's ANY chance that you've forgotten to check it or maybe gone more than 24 hours without PATIENTLY checking it because the trap WILL stop catching their buddies and kin if we don't realize there's a carcass covering the electrodes.
2): THE MOST EFFECTIVE MOUSE-CATCHING TRICK I LEARNED: Because everyone has area's where it's hard to place a mousetrap (under furniture or cabinets, in corners, etc.) or they've eluded your traps, use this trick: crinkle-up then re-open some newspapers to cover this trap and place it as close as possible to their best hiding places and travel routes because most mice WILL be tricked into making a quick dash for tasty treats IF they think they'll be out of sight of humans AND your un-crumpled newspaper will create plenty of niches for them to quickly dash into a dark, hidden place to get to their treat and into this trap. Just be sure to lift the newspaper and check the hidden trap fairly often.
3): Don't expect any creature to be trapped too effortlessly, keep moving these traps to wherever you've heard or seen traces of them, replace with `fresh' peanutbutter occasionally AND keep trying new baits like sticking a pumpkin seed or few sunflower seeds onto the bait-end of this trap, or sprinkle some flour or very-fine wheat-thins crumbs under the trap (be sure to vacuum these up later). Even mice have intelligence and various unique advantages to help them survive and propagate so we've got to out-diligence and outsmarting them.
4): If you ever hear a squeak check the trap after 15 seconds because mice will sometimes (but NOT always) squeak when shocked; then immediately dump and reset it near that same spot because you may have discovered one of their group `expeditions', I once caught a family of several mice within 15 minutes this way.
5): Eventually we'll neglect or forget to check these traps within 24 hours or we'll be too impatient to catch the intermittent blinking light, or whatever; so DEFINITELY open the trap to visually double-check it at least once a week. You may be surprised how often you'll find a new one inside BUT the trap had stopped catching it's buddies because a carcass was covering the electrodes.
6): FINALLY THE BEST PERMANENT SOLUTION TO MICE- A neighbor paid for a GOOD, very comprehensive energy audit where they used temperature-sensitive `guns' to locate every crack and hole in their house; they located and filled every possible `'leak'' with expanding foam and not only FINALLY ended their decade-long mouse invasions and wars, but they cut their energy bills enough to pay for the audit within just a few months.
PS): Don't throw out the snap-traps that your mice have been avoiding because every one you catch reduces the number of offspring that you'll need to catch before that generation starts propagating (only a few weeks); just modify the un-crumbled newspapers trick to make sure you've molded or tee-pee'd the papers in such a way that the snap-bar can flip around without hitting the newspapers.
So hopefully you'll use or share these additional tips and tricks with anyone needing help with mice problems.

My son and I lived at my Mom's last year while my husband was deployed. She has a split level and I was living in the basement. The movers had lost our bed frame so my mattress and boxframe were on the floor (do you see where this is going??)

So I was reading a book one night before going to sleep and a mouse CLIMED IN TO THE BED WITH ME!!! I was soooooooo totally grossed out!! Needless to say I went out and bought a bed and frame the next morning... after I slept upstairs on the couch!! There was a huge nest of them in the closed-front fireplace. I tried the standard *SNAP* traps (I got 5 the 1st day.... bleeeeeechhh!) but I had to stop that after the last time (there were TWO in the trap) they were still alive, bloody and flopping...... eeeeeeewwwwwwwwww.

I went to lowes and bought one of these traps. I LOVED THIS TRAP!! The mice are D-E-A-D, DEAD! You just take the trap out to the trash can, flip the top, and dump out the dead-as-a-doornail corpse. No more mice that aren't quite dead. No more snapping your fingers in traps. No more having mice steal the bait and yet eluding the trap. And you don't have to worry about your pets getting hurt or poisoned.

I'd give it 10 Stars if I could!!

This trap does the job in a way that no other trap does. It catches the mice that can lick all the peanut butter off of the traditional trap without tripping it, and it does so without requiring a brutal execution (like glue traps do). The mechanism of the trap is hidden, too, so no need to worry about the dog. Follow the directions, and it will work.

The product maybe a little finicky, but when you get it working, it definitely catches mice. I live in New York City and the mice are really smart! They seem to completely laugh at poison and professional traps set by my exterminator! With this trap, I don't have any poison around the house, which is a bonus. When the trap catches a mice, the green light blinks and you know when to empty the trap and reset with new bait. I read people use peanut butter, but small bits of Kit Kat, or left over chicken or meat seems to do the trick too. I spread food near the entry and at the end to maximize entrapment. Success rate of catching is pretty high, tho once or twice, the food disappeared without a trace. Regardless, I still recommend this product.

Pros
- No poison spread around the house. Just a trap - set, catch, empty and reset.

- Trap has completely eradicated my mice problem in my house in New York city! No signs of mice in 6 months.

- It kills the mice on contact, fast and quick. Flip the cover to dump mice into trash -- doesn't get easier. Place new bait and reset.

- The chance of shocking yourself is very low. Decent safety features.

Cons
- Sometimes the device doesn't seem to turn on -- one trap I got had bad battery contact problems -- and needed to be pampered or knocked around before it turns on. This is ultimately the most annoying part (which I have read about) -- I do sometimes wonder if it continues to stay "on." The green LED on top of the casing does make it easy to check if device is working.

- Sometimes a loose cover can be the issue, which has a safety trigger. So if the cover is slightly ajar, it deactivates the shock system. That cover has to stay tightly closed for it to work properly.

- In addition I have to be careful not to have food particles fall on metal contacts inside. That triggers the shock system and deactivates it shortly after....which lets the mice run away with food if you are unaware it has been falsely triggered. So it's important to have bait that wont tumble around in trap -- makes peanut butter spread a good choice.


Ultimately, I don't have a mice problem anymore, and the result is better than my professional exterminator. So I am happy. I must have caught at least 10 or 12 with this device, and I bought 3 to set up around the house!! It's funny because the blinking light tells me I caught something and I looked forward to the blinking lights every morning! The device got rid of my infestation I think within 2-3 weeks.

Three weeks of glue traps had me nearly suicidal - the mouse wouldn't go near them. The snap traps were too small, this mouse was bigger than they were.

I bought this electronic trap at night, baited it before bed with pizza inside and a cheeto in the doorway (I live in NYC - that peanut butter business doesn't work with NYC mice...but I knew he liked Cheetos since he had eaten half a bag while I was at work, and pizza is one of their favorite foods), and by morning there was a tail hanging out.

I will say that the light was not blinking like it said it would be, but it killed it and there was a tail hanging out, so I'm not complaining.

Originally I didn't buy the electronic trap because of the price tag - but in the end, if I'd bought it FIRST, I'd have saved myself like $60 in other traps and food I had to throw out (not to mention pain and suffering). WELL WORTH IT - and reusable.

There's nothing worse than entering your kitchen, to catch a mouse out of the corner of your eye, scurrying away. And finding their disgusting droppings in your pans and cabinets is intolerable!

When you've had enough, get this trap. It will solve your problem. Within 48 hours of using this trap, I caught seven mice, and that was it...they're gone.

This trap runs on batteries (4-AA) and when baited with a dab of peanut butter, is an irresistable lure for the little critters. Once inside, they can't back out, and when they step on the electrified plate, it's goodbye freeloader! A light blinks on the trap when a mouse is caught, and your hands never touch the mouse as you flip a lid to dispose of it - brilliant!

No glue, poisons, or foul odor from an unlocated dead mouse. This is simply the most efficient way to handle your problem. I bought two, but one was enough to get the mice where they obvoiusly hang out; in my case, they were eating my cat's dry food, and she's suprisingly ambivelent about chasing them, so I had to take action. By the way, this trap is safe for pets...the opening is too small for kitties and dogs to get their paws into.

Anyhoo, two weeks later, there's no trace of 'em...ahhh, peace of mind at last!

I live by a field and been dealing with mice in back yard and nothing works tried all traps, once in a great while would get one , but this is awesome I set at night than before I go to bed I check it and sure enough I caught a mouse re-set it, and next morn. I caught another mouse. Every night this week I have caught one since I bought this product. THANK YOU VERY MUCH GREAT PRODUCT going to buy another one for garage. I did not know how bad of a mouse promblem I have had and I'm a very clean person it is very gross. This product is great no mess just open and dumped.