Rat traps: a review of the best designs (those you can buy and homemade ones)

When it comes to rat traps, many people associate them with a standard crusher die (popularly called a mousetrap). Indeed, such traps are the most common, quite convenient to use, effective and at the same time inexpensive. But they have serious drawbacks, which is why people often don’t want to use them – we’ll talk about this in more detail below.

Fortunately, the light did not converge on crusher traps, and to catch rats you can also use numerous rat traps of other designs - tunnels, cages, tops, various original homemade means made from available scrap materials. Moreover, in terms of efficiency and ease of use, these traps are not inferior to rat traps and crushers, and in many respects they even surpass them.

Let's look at the most popular designs of rat traps, find out what features they have, and figure out how you can significantly increase their efficiency by choosing the right bait...

Cage trap

The rat trap cage is good for its safety in use - it cannot harm either humans or pets.

The principle of its operation is that the rat climbs inside the trap, pulls the bait, lowers the guard, after which the cage door slams shut, and the animal can no longer escape anywhere. Thus, the cage rat trap works humanely - it does not kill or injure the animal, and after being caught, it can be released outside the house or property.

There are several disadvantages to this design:

Something needs to be done with a live caught rat. Not everyone is capable of killing it on their own, but taking it somewhere and releasing it where the animal will not cause any harm is difficult and time-consuming. Alternatively, the prey can be given to the cat (but if this cat did not catch it in the first place, then the cat may not be able to cope with the trapped rat);
The rat trap itself is quite cumbersome - given the height of the gatehouse, it can only be placed in an open place, and it will not always fit where a rat is likely to find it. And when stored, the structure takes up quite a lot of space.

A cage rat trap costs on average from 500 to 1000 rubles; you can buy it in industrial markets, in home improvement stores, as well as on the Internet (sold under the brands Maxi, Nutcracker, Clean House and others).

You can also make a similar trap yourself, although this is a rather difficult task that requires certain carpentry skills and special tools. An analogue of a rat trap-cage, working on the same principle, can be made from various improvised means - plastic bottles, food containers or coffee cans. And especially creative rodent fighters make similar structures even from vegetable graters.

Review
“We lived peacefully for many years until a rat came to us. I think she came running from the neighbors and spoiled a lot of our nerves. I started looking for a rat trap and decided to buy a cage, because it was somehow a pity to kill an animal. Moreover, we live outside the city, so releasing it into the field is not a problem. I bought it in Moscow for 450 rubles. So normal, neat. I hung a piece of lard as bait. And it worked! At night I hear something rustling in the kitchen. I come there, the rat has been caught and is rushing around this cage, everything is shaking. So this is a working thing..."
Igor, Zhabkino

Zürner's rat trap

The Zürner trap is another humane classic rat trap, which looks like a tall, long wooden house with two entrances on different sides. There is a bait inside the house; when approaching it, the rat stands on a tipping floor in a certain place and falls into a special closed chamber. The floor itself then returns to its place, and several more rats may be caught in the trap.

In general, the disadvantages of the Zürner rat trap are almost the same as those of the cage trap. Except that it is even more cumbersome, and therefore is used mainly in industrial enterprises or in scientific research. It is difficult to buy, they are not currently producing it commercially, and therefore most often such rat traps are made by craftsmen with their own hands.

An important advantage of the design is the ability to use it to catch several rats at once.

On a note
The principle implemented in the Zürner rat trap is often used in the manufacture of highly effective homemade mousetraps and rat traps. For example, a rodent can be caught if a tunnel (tipping bridge) made from a sheet of paper is placed on the edge of the table, at the end of which there is bait, and under it there is a bucket of water or a barrel. To make this rat trap you don’t even need to buy anything special - everything is made from scrap materials.

Electrical devices

The method of killing rodents with electric current is used in special devices powered by mains or batteries. The animal dies instantly. This occurs under the influence of a high-voltage electrical discharge. In the American Victor Rat Trap, the discharge lasts about 2 minutes, which leaves the animal no chance to survive if it finds itself in such a trap. The homeowner will know that a pest has been caught by a red indicator. Safe for humans, effective and reliable, the device is able to cope with 50 rodents using only one battery change. This type of rat trap is also used to get rid of mice.

Rat trap top

This trap works similar to the Zürner trap, only it is not a wooden structure, but a large mesh “bag”. In it, under the weight of the animal’s body, the support also fails, and the animal ends up in a compartment from which it can no longer get out.

You can make such a trap from a fishing tip by closing one of the cone-shaped holes with a folding bottom.

The top rat trap is made of a metal mesh that the rat will not chew through. It has no significant advantages over the Zürner trap, and it is also poorly presented on sale. As a rule, tops are used to catch rats in various hunting grounds and in tree nurseries, where similar structures are purchased for catching other small animals - mustelids, squirrels, gophers and hamsters.

Killing rats with electric traps

Perhaps the most modern rat traps are electric. In them, the rat closes the contacts of an electrical circuit (by standing on metal electrodes with its paws or grabbing the bait with its teeth), and receives an electric shock with a voltage of several thousand volts.

The main advantage of such rat traps over those discussed above is the automatic (or semi-automatic) solution to all problems with rodents. The latest models of these traps are designed in such a way that you don’t even have to pick up the rat’s corpse. Moreover, you don’t even have to look at it - the rat trap simply bends over the garbage bag, its contents are shaken out, and that’s it.

On a note
Sometimes, out of ignorance, people start looking in stores for some kind of electronic anti-rat device, meaning an electric rat trap, and they are offered an electric ultrasonic device (repellent). So, it is important to understand that there are no ultrasonic rat traps - ultrasound is used specifically to repel rodents, and not to destroy them.

Today in Russia, among electric rat traps you can buy the American Rat Killer Yutec trap (although it is rapidly disappearing from sale) and high-tech rat traps produced by the Victor company. For example:

Victor Rat Zapper Classic (price about 3,500 rubles);
Victor Electronic Rat Trap (costs about 4,500 rubles);
Victor Multi Kill Electronic Mouse Trap (approximately 8,500 rubles). This model has a compartment for automatically collecting the bodies of dead rats, and therefore with its help you can catch up to 8 pests in one night.

It is also useful to read: Which rat and mouse repeller is better: a review of devices and reviews about them

Modern electric rat traps are quite effective and safe to use; they operate on batteries (in standby mode, one set of batteries can last for a year or more).

The main disadvantage of devices of this type is the relatively high price. It is not always rational to spend several thousand rubles to get rid of one rat.

In addition, some cheap models of electric rat traps do not have a sufficiently developed protection system, and there is a risk that if a child or pet tries to get something from the trap, they will receive an unpleasant electric shock (fortunately, not fatal). In the latest models of rat traps, a passage is specially designed in which only a rodent can penetrate to the electrode, but a child’s hand or a cat’s paw will not get through.

Review
“We used the rat trap Victor, it’s just a bomb! Before that, we had an ordinary slamming cage, there was a lot of hassle with caught rats. The problem is that we have a private house and barn, and rats appear here all the time. It’s impossible to put a mousetrap - our lazy cat might get caught with her paw, so we put a cage. It’s not clear what to do with a rat from a cage. If the little rat is small, then the cat takes it. And if she’s healthy, mature, then you need to kill her. Walking through the entire village to the river to let them out is not an option. I can't even look at this rat. That's why we bought an electric one. The price, of course, bites. In St. Petersburg, on average, they cost 4,000 rubles. But we decided to buy it. When a rat is caught, it just lies there, not thrashing about, not twitching, dead. I turn off the rat trap, shake the rat into the trash, then put it back in place. Convenient, simple and fast."
Tatyana, Copper Plant

How rats get into houses and why rodents are dangerous to humans

Rats are one of the most obvious signs of unsanitary conditions; they live where there is something to eat. Among the conditions that are favorable for the life of pests are the presence of food waste (crumbs, peelings, bones, cereals), protection from cold, and high humidity. Rats can also infest houses in the vicinity of their source. It is not uncommon for these animals to appear in multi-storey buildings where there is a garbage chute, along the walls of which rats successfully travel long distances, entering apartments through open doors or ventilation holes. The first floors are most susceptible to rat invasion, where rodents flee from basements and cellars located in the basement. The private sector suffers the most from these pests. Parasitic mammals love pigsties, chicken coops and other places where food debris is poorly removed.

I first saw a rat in the backyard after a neighbor decided to raise piglets without having the habit of keeping the animals clean. A few months later, a family of rodents was discovered and quickly eliminated in a woodshed located on my property.

The main threat that rats pose to humans is the diseases they transmit. You can become infected not only through a bite, but also through feces, which contain bacteria that are dangerous to human life. The most common diseases transmitted by rodents are:

leptospirosis,
rabies,
tularemia,
typhus, etc.

Traps based on special glue for rodents

Such rat traps work due to the fact that the rat sticks its paws (sometimes its body) to a special, very viscous glue - it tries to break away, gets stuck in the glue even more, sticks with its fur, and can no longer escape.

The beauty of glue rat traps is that they rarely fail (sometimes this happens if dust or moisture gets on the glue). These are not mechanical devices that misfire and which, when triggered, only kill one animal. Several rats and mice can stick to the glue at the same time, and it remains effective for a very long time.

In addition, sticky traps are quite inexpensive. The anti-rodent glue itself costs around 100 rubles per tube, and to install such a rat trap, you just need to spread the glue on a substrate (cardboard, plywood), put the bait in the middle and place the prepared trap where rats or mice often run. All animals that try to get close to the bait will stick.

On a note
Ready-to-use glue traps for rodents are also sold. They are inexpensive and work just as effectively as homemade ones.

There are three main disadvantages to glue traps:

Inhumanity - animals suffer for a long time in such traps, slowly dying of thirst (or they must be killed immediately after being caught). You can, of course, for humane reasons, peel off a mouse or rat from such glue using vegetable oil, but this will not be so easy to do with an aggressive animal;
A pet or child may get dirty with glue. It will be very difficult to wash away the stains - cats and dogs have to have their fur cut off after this;
You cannot use such a rat trap outside the premises so that birds do not get caught in them.

Nevertheless, the effectiveness of glue traps is quite high - with their help, at a small financial cost, it is quite possible to get rid of even a large number of rodents in a room.

Review
“Rats constantly lived in our OBI in the winter, the administration decided to fight them and ordered the installation of glue rat traps (they are the cheapest). We placed them in the warehouse and at the unloading site, the next day three sparrows were caught in one rat trap (at the unloading site). I felt so sorry for them, and it was impossible to tear this bird off, its feathers were falling off, it was sticking even more. One sparrow was saved, but the other two were strangled while we pulled them out. After that, we removed the glue and installed plastic Supercats. We caught them all winter..."
Angelina, Moscow

Ways to control rodents

The process of killing rodents is called deratization. There are methods:

biological;
mechanical;
chemical.

Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. When choosing which one to use, you need to consider all the pros and cons.

Biological method

Cats are better at catching rats than cats

Mechanical method

Rat trap

It is best to use traps at the initial stage, when the first scout rat appears in the house, since this method will not work to get rid of the presence of several rats in the apartment: when one dies, the rest will quickly understand where the danger is coming from and begin to avoid it.

Glue traps used to catch mice are not suitable for catching rats - a strong and dexterous rodent, which is several times larger than a mouse, is freed from them without much difficulty. You can only catch a rat in a real trap that can quickly and sharply hit and stun it. An ordinary mousetrap, like a glue trap, is not suitable for this purpose - with its help you can only catch a young individual.

Bait is placed in the trap, which should have a fairly pronounced pleasant smell - cheese, smoked sausage, lard. Pieces of food must be secured so that the animal does not have the opportunity to remove it without falling into a trap.

To increase the chance of killing a rat, it is better to place two traps at once, one opposite the other, in a mirror image. In this case, if the rodent manages to avoid one, it may run into another.

Chemical method

Rats can be exterminated using toxic chemicals created specifically for this purpose. Top 5 similar tools:

Goliath is a highly effective professional product used over a large area. The poison causes suffocation in rats. The cost of 1 kg is about a thousand rubles.
Storm - the poison poisons the rat, accumulating in its body gradually, death occurs within 10 days, after which the corpse mummifies. Produced in briquettes, the cost of one is about 70 rubles.
Inta-Vir also has mummifying properties. Price – 290 rubles.
Zookoumarin is a powdered drug with anticoagulant properties that causes internal bleeding in rats, as a result of which they die within one week. The average cost of a package is 40 rubles.
Ratfish - looks like grain bait soaked in poison. The price of a 100-gram package is 30 rubles.

The rules for using poisons, as well as their dosage, are indicated on the packaging. When choosing how to poison rats at home, you should take into account that almost all poisons have both advantages and disadvantages. Among the disadvantages are the high price (Goliath), decomposition of rat corpses in hard-to-reach places (Zookoumarin), and the rapid development of immunity in rodents (Ratsid).

If a rat manages to survive after consuming a poisonous bait, resistance to this type of poison appears not only in it, but also in its offspring, so independent attempts by the owners of apartments and houses to poison the bees are sometimes unsuccessful.

Advantages and disadvantages of a standard rat trap-masher (mousetrap)

The well-known mechanical rat traps-squeezers are quite effective, inexpensive and easy-to-use traps. The photo below shows a classic version of this type of device:

The principle of their operation is that the bait guard keeps a powerful spring from being released. The structure of the guard in this rat trap is such that as soon as a rat pulls the bait, a spring descends and nails the animal with a strong bracket, usually breaking its neck, skull or spine.

To catch rats, large rat traps about 30 cm long are used. Using a standard spring mousetrap to catch a rat is not always effective, since in many cases the spring of the mousetrap does not kill the rat.

It is also useful to read: Poison from rats and mice Goliath and features of the use of this remedy

Such rat traps are good for their effectiveness, low cost and ease of use. A crusher costs on average from 100 to 200 rubles.

To charge and properly install the structure, you must:

Place a suitable bait on the hook (its choice is written below);
Bend the bracket back, cover it with a guard and rest the guard against the hook with bait;
Place the rat trap where a rat is likely to find it.

After catching the animal, the bracket is lifted, the rat is taken out and thrown away.

This whole design has several disadvantages:

The trap can cause serious injury to a cat, dog or child who touches the bait. Moreover, large rat traps can even break a pet’s paw or a child’s finger;
And again, the rat needs to be taken out - especially squeamish people cannot do this.

If removing a rat from a trap is not a problem for you, and you plan to use the device where pets and children do not appear, then using a rat crusher will be one of the best options for fighting rats.

Rat traps are manufactured and sold under different brands:

Clean House (wooden rat trap with metal bracket). Analogues are the Stayer Standart and Rat&Mouse presses;
Super Cat is a plastic trap that looks like slamming jaws (this type of trap is also called a rat trap-lock). Its analogues are Appearance 730 and 733, Mr. Mouse, Great Oval.

The photo below shows the SuperCat rat trap (from Swissino):

In addition, today there are numerous Chinese rat traps of the same types on the market, which are also quite effective.

Sometimes the KP-130 trap is used as a rat trap, which is a typical hunting trap for small fur-bearing animals.

Review
“My husband bought a Super Cat rat trap a couple of years ago, and it still works. Good item, reliable. The good thing about her is that the rat just has to stand on a special heel. She stepped on it, bang, and she was crushed. I don’t know, we’ve probably already caught about 20 of them in the barn. We put it in the basement a couple of times, the rats don’t get used to it, they’re not afraid of it, they always get caught.”
Inna, Odessa

Several options for effective homemade rat traps

Homemade rat traps, when properly made and used, can be no less effective than store-bought ones, and they can be easily assembled from scrap materials (literally in a matter of minutes, without going to the market or store and without spending money on it).

We have already discussed overturning traps above in the block about the Zürner trap. A variant of such rat traps is a bottle pierced with wire and installed horizontally above a bucket or barrel. If you smear it with bait - sauce, minced meat, mayonnaise - and bring a stand in the form of a small inclined board to it, then the rat will climb onto the edge of the bucket, reach for the bait, and as soon as it stands on the bottle, it will turn and the animal will fall into the bucket:

An even simpler design is simply a bucket or pan resting on a very unstable support, such as a ring of wire. If you put bait under a bucket, the rat will try to climb behind it, push either the bucket or the support itself, and the bucket will cover it.

On a note
This design, by the way, can be improved if you spread the pan inside with a crossbar, tie a thread to the support, throw this thread over the crossbar and tie the other end of the thread to the bait. The rat will pull the bait, pull the support and cover itself with the trap.

Finally, you can make a rat trap from a heavy object that will simply crush the rat if it tries to remove the bait from the guardhouse - this is the type of traps made in the wild from stones and supports from sticks.

Craftsmen also make snares from cable ties, ingenious live traps from plastic bottles - in fact, there are a huge number of options, and inventors are constantly coming up with new original designs and methods of catching rats.

The following video shows an example of making a homemade rat trap using a cable tie:

How to make a rat trap with your own hands

If for some reason it is not possible to buy a ready-made trap for rodents, you can always try to build a rat trap yourself from materials that you have on hand.

From a flower pot

This rat trap is the easiest and most affordable to use. But the pot itself must be quite large to completely cover the rat. If you don't have one, an enamel or tin bucket will do.

Step-by-step instructions for making such a trap are as follows:

We prepare a high plastic bar. It should be such that the rat can easily get into the pot.
We sharpen one side of the bar and place the bait on the tip. We direct the pointed edge into the pot.
We place the bar on the edge.
We place a pot on top, one side resting on the bar and the other on the floor.

To create a home trap, you can use any similar container instead of a pot.

When the rodent grabs the bait, the bar falls, the pot lowers, and the rat remains trapped inside.

From the bucket

To make a trap, you can use an unnecessary plastic or iron bucket, as well as a sheet of cardboard and tape. The rat trap is installed in the following order:

A tunnel is made from cardboard and secured with tape.
One half is placed on the edge of the table (it is advisable to secure it with tape to the table so that it does not move), and the other should hang down.
Bait is placed on the edge of the tunnel.
A bucket is placed under the hanging half of the cardboard structure.

To create a rat trap, instead of cardboard, you can use a piece of wide plastic pipe

When the rat smells the bait, it will follow it inside the tunnel and, having reached the edge, tip over into the container.

Video: operating principle of a rat trap made of cardboard and a container of water

From a plastic bottle

To catch a large rat, use a 2-5 liter bottle and perform the following steps step by step:

The top part of the bottle is cut off, but not all the way, so that it can be opened slightly.
A long rod is fixed at the bottom of the cut opening. A harness is attached to it, replacing the spring.
A hole is made near the bottom of the bottle. A hook is attached to it, on which the bait is attached.
The door that is made is attracted to the top of the bottle itself and, as soon as the rodent pulls the treat, it slams shut.

The traditional version of a bottle trap is very easy to make

Electric homemade rat trap

To make an electric trap, we will need plexiglass, wood, a plug with wires cut from old household appliances, and step-by-step implementation of the following steps:

We are building a house. The upper and lower parts are made of wood, everything else is made of plexiglass.
An exit is created in one wall, and long grooves are drilled in the other two, located parallel.
A glass plate is inserted into them. It should slide easily in the grooves.
Another gap is made on the side of the door. Two bare wires crossed with each other are passed through it.
They are led to the trap door.
The bait is placed inside.

As a result of these simple actions, the rat ends up in a trap, where it is electrocuted.

People who have at least a little knowledge of this field can make an electric trap.

Noose noose

Making your own rat trap-noose is not difficult.

To make a noose loop we will need:

rubber band;
a piece of strong thread or fishing line;
wooden plank;
weight (wrench, hammer);
bait.

Step-by-step instruction:

We construct a loop from a rubber band that should be easily tightened.
Attach the noose to the edge of the board. The end of the tape should hang down.
We attach the bait to the edge of the board so that, when approaching it, the rat runs through the loop.
We tie the bait with a thread, one end of which is tied to the load, the other to the noose.
When the animal grabs the bait, the weighting object falls sharply, and the noose around the rodent's neck tightens.

What is important to know about using bait in rat traps

All rat traps work by attracting rats with bait, so choosing it must be approached with special care - the effectiveness of the whole undertaking may depend on this.

Practice shows that the best bait for rat traps is fragrant meat products such as smoked sausage, minced meat with onions, and smoked lard. Fish, cheese, and eggs are also quite effective. However, meat is good because it attracts rats the most - these animals, so to speak, are more carnivorous than, for example, mice (mice prefer plant foods - grains, nuts, fruits).

Therefore, if you load a rat trap with a piece of sausage, the rats are unlikely to be able to resist it.

In those traps where the rat must pull the bait, you need to use products of the appropriate dense consistency - sausage, lard, cheese. Where the simple fact of a rat entering the rat trap is sufficient (for example, in a Zürner trap), cat and dog food, canned food or minced meat can be used as bait.

Review
“We have a reinforced metal rat trap that works great, powerful, made in the Czech Republic. In it, the spring is directly built into the stand, and there are teeth along the edges of the die itself. It works without misfire, we charge it in the evening, and in the morning the rat is ready in the rat trap. We have found out from our own experience that the best bait for rats is a crust of bread with beer, tested. They climb on it, they can’t resist...”
Alexey, Moscow

If you have personal experience using a rat trap of one type or another, be sure to share the information by leaving your review at the bottom of this page (in the comments field). Did the device help you and did you have any problems using it?

An example of how an electric rat trap works

How to make a rat trap with your own hands - step-by-step instructions

For example, let's take a trap made of cardboard tubes. Cut one such sleeve along its surface. Glue the two cut pieces together to form a full-fledged 30 cm gutter. Place it over a deep bucket in the form of a mound (correctly, so that one end hangs down). Place food in the part above the bucket. It will work like this: when the rat runs up a steep slope and gets to the food, the lid of the bucket will fall under its weight, and the rodent will be inside.

DIY rat trap made from plastic bottles

Homemade rat traps are often made from plastic bottles at home. To make homemade bait, you will need a plastic bottle with a wide neck, which must be cut off immediately. You need to pierce a hole a centimeter from the cut; pass a strong thread 60 cm long into its end.

The bait is placed in the bottle, and it itself should be on the surface above the floor. It is advisable that the food be in the part of the plastic bottle that hangs over the surface (the top has support, but the bottom does not). Tie the thread that was used to pour over the bottle to a nail. The animal can be caught due to the fact that the mousetrap will tip over when it itself reaches into the open plastic bottle for the bait.

Rat trap for large rats at home

If you find a large 1000 liter iron barrel in a private house, you can catch the animal with homemade bait at home. The empty vessel should be placed on the floor of the barn where the rat was found. Everything is quite simple: they usually put food that is familiar to the rodent in the barrel. As soon as he wants to eat heavily, by his actions the rodent will climb up the outer walls or along the walls of the barn into the barrel, but he will no longer be able to get out in the opposite direction. Sometimes boiling water is poured into such a vessel so that the rat is doused with hot water.

Homemade electric rat trap - how to make?

On the Internet, many people present ideas that come to their minds about how they can use electronic traps at home to catch a mouse or rat.

To do this, you can make a whole house (the upper and lower parts are made of wood, the door and side walls are made of plexiglass, and the rear retractable wall is made of traditional glass). At the bottom you need to make a shallow groove with a width of 3 cm. Then the floor is covered with a slab of wood. Two exposed wires are passed crosswise through the floor. The plate closes the groove, which already contains wires. That is, when the pest gets inside, the movable plate goes down and the wires short-circuit. It is better to wear rubber gloves while making electric and electronic baits.

DIY metal rat trap - instructions

There are instructions not only for electronic traps or those made from plastic bottles, but also for high quality metal ones. To do this, those who fish or know what rat traps are must sacrifice a metal box for fishing tackle (the main thing is that there is a door that slams shut). A wooden strip is attached to the door, its end is fixed with thick wire. The other end with the bait should hang in the box itself. When the rat grabs the food, the wire slides off and the trap closes.

DIY rat trap made from a bucket

One of the simplest methods involves a bucket. Take the largest coin and place a homemade trap so that part of the bucket stands on the edge of this coin. The bait itself is placed in front of the bucket. Having heard the smell, the rodent will in any case touch the penny and the trap will slam shut - the “dressing” of the bucket will occur.

Ratcatcher cat - what breeds of cats catch rats?

The most famous breed of rat-catching cat is the British Shorthair, which can catch a huge number of parasites in a day. These breeds also include the Cymric, Kurilian Bobtail, Maine Coon, Nibelung, Russian Blue, Siberian, Shawsie and Turkish Van.

The best bait for rats in a rat trap

If you make an electronic, electric or plastic bottle trap, you still need to know how to lure a rodent into it at home. So how can you lure a rat into a rat trap? First of all, food with a strong smell. Flour, beer, lard, bread, seeds, cheese, any grains, as well as smoked meats are suitable.

Check the cheese first, if there is no result, feel free to choose another product from the list and wait. The rodent will definitely get caught, since it will not be possible to cope with the smell that attracts it.