It is much

easier to control a pest outside of the maze, than once it has entered the maze.

The board game Mouse Trap has an elaborate mechanical trap for mice that includes bait, gravity, a bathtub, and a net to help capture mice. PMPs have a variety of choices for mechanical traps. Some monitoring devices can serve double duty and can contain a snap trap or glue board. Some more recent products can be placed in difficult-to-reach areas such as on pipes close to the ceiling, or come in a variety of different styles (one of which resembles a dinosaur’s jaw). PMPs typically bait the mechanical traps with a strong smelling food attractant or bait, such as peanut butter with anchovy oil. The bait may smell bad or very strong to humans, but can be extremely attractive to the rodents.

There are many great and funny quotes about building a better mouse trap and mice becoming harder to catch; unfortunately this is true. Rodents make choices which are often due to previous experience. Think back to the videos of lab rats moving through the maze - each time the rodent goes through the maze they leave a scent

of where they were. Each time the rodent or a family member uses the same runway through the maze the scent gets stronger and becomes more familiar. Objects such as traps or monitors placed in the runway may be investigated or avoided by jumping or moving around. It is the PMP’s experience, persistence, and knowledge of the structure and rodent behavior that will capture rodents.

Moving around the Mouse Trap board, there is one other type of rodent control represented in the game. One of the Mouse Trap boards has a picture of a cat and another of a dog. The cat looks healthy and fat, as if it had just eaten a mouse or two. The use of biological organisms to control pest populations is called biological control. PMPs don’t use biological control, but they do need to be aware of pets and small children when determining which control methods they are going to use. Bait stations

are designed to be tamper-proof, but the possibility of tampering, loose bait, or secondary poisoning should be considered when determining which rodent control methods to use.

The most important part of rodent management is communication, documentation, and an understanding that the management program is a partnership between the PMP and the structure representatives. The management program should be proactive and preventative. Once rodents have entered a structure, the reactive approaches can take time to be effective; but with persistence and knowledge of rodent behavior, the program can go back to being proactive. So dig out Mouse Trap, roll the dice or spin the spinner, and may all the rodents be captured.

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