Whether you like it or not, rat traps are a necessity for everyone who lives in a remote area or in buildings with a large population of rats. These small rodents can chew their way through almost anything including concrete in their search for food if they smell any, especially in the cold months of winter. While some people choose to ignore the threat thinking they might just go away, mice and rats will instead multiply and pose a serious threat not only to your household appliances but to your family’s health as well.

A good way to protect yourself in that regard is to invest in one or two rat traps that you can deploy around the house. One thing to remember is that rat traps come in all shapes and sizes and that you are going to need to figure out what a good rat trap is supposed to look like if you are to have success in dealing with those pesky pests. To give you a helping hand, we put together a list of the ten best rat traps the market has to offer for you to look at.

Best Rat Traps – Reviews

10HARCCI Effective Rat Trap

This is without a doubt, one of the best low-end rat traps out there. Simplistic in their design and fairly easy to use, these traps benefit from a user-friendly design and are surprisingly easy to clean. Unlike traditional wood traps, these models are designed to keep your fingers safe from accidental harm by employing a removable bait cup and a practical set of jaws operated through a foot pedal. What’s more, you get no less than six pieces for a relatively small price tag. At the same time, the traps are guaranteed to also catch mice and other rodents just as easily.

9Victor M2 Smart-Kill Wi-Fi Electronic Rat Trap

As the name suggests, this is an electronic rat trap, a state of the art device equipped with Wi-Fi capabilities. This enables you to receive kill alerts on your mobile device whenever the trap goes off. This is to help you save time by only checking the trap when prompted to do so, thus saving you the hassle of having to check the traps yourself from time to time. Not just that but you also get the capacity to monitor the traps from anywhere via the user-friendly app the trap comes equipped with. As for its operation, let us point out that it uses high-voltage shocks to kill rodents, which unfortunately means that you should only use it indoors to avoid accidental discharges.

8UCatch Tunneled Dual Entry Rodent Snap Trap

This fast and effective trapper works by discreetly luring and killing pests in almost any type of environment. As such, it can be positioned along walls, baseboards, tight corners, or pretty much anywhere rodents might like to walk by. Due to its safe design, it is entirely dogproof and childproof, many thanks to its unique two-sided entry and hidden activation pedal that cannot be triggered externally. Easy to deploy, this trap requires only that you load food bait on its bottom, press the clamp, and then wait for it to catch whatever rat or mouse stumbles inside it.

7Victor M326 Pro Wood Rat Snap Trap

With this set of two Wood Rat Snap Traps from Victor, you pretty much get what you expect and nothing more. In principle, these are traditional wooden traps that work roughly the same way old traps used to work. The only real addition is the superior spring along with the wire snap, which are both of a much higher quality than most traps. Perfectly safe for household use, these traps work by snapping shut as soon as the trigger mechanism is activated, a simple yet effective motion that has been used for rat traps since forever. Given their inexpensive nature, you can safely dispose of the traps as soon as they show signs of damage or get dirty beyond cleaning.

6eXuby Large Powerful Rat Traps

This pack of 8 reliable rat traps from eXuby boast a powerful steel spring that despite its strength, can be activated in just a few seconds. Guaranteed to deliver an instant kill, they can be easily set and placed pretty much anywhere on account of their compact design. What’s more, they are completely reusable and easy to dispose of, should you ever need to replace them with other traps. Not just that but they also contain no harmful chemicals whatsoever, which means that you can place them around the house without the fear of contamination or the risk that they might cause allergies for your pets.

5Kat Sense Large Rat Trap Mice Traps

These well-engineered rat traps from Kat Sense are designed to increase capturing power with no false triggers whatsoever. Due to their sleek, easy-to-use design, they are a lot more responsive than traditional traps, thanks mainly to their trigger mechanism which operates faster than traditional wood traps. At the same time, the newly designed snap trap features an integrated bait cup which keeps the rodents attracted to the bait, thus providing better results overall. Furthermore, we should point out that these traps are perfectly reusable and very easy to clean, which is definitely something to consider when buying a rat trap of any kind.

4Tomcat 0361710 Rat Snap Trap

Designed to effectively kill rats of any size, this powerful and reliable rat trap from Tomcat can be used in virtually any environment with no limitations to speak of. Due to a powerful and aggressive design, it is both effective and easy to use, a lethal combination that’s guaranteed to rid you of your pests in no time. We say this because it can be easily set by hand or by foot with minimal effort on your part. All you need to do is to place bait into the removable bait cup and let the device do the rest. What’s interesting about this particular trap is the interlocking teeth feature which makes escape literally impossible once activated.

3Pestrax Electronic Rodent Zapper

It is very important for a rat trap to be both practical and easy to use, which is precisely what makes this particular rat trap stand out. Equipped with a smart circuit technology, it can protect your home from rodents of all kinds, without the risks usually associated with using traditional rat traps. This is because it employs a state of the art electric zapper operated via a highly responsive motion sensor that delivers no less than 7,000 volts towards the unsuspecting rat or mouse in a matter of milliseconds.

2Made2catch Classic Galvanized Metal Rat Traps

Thanks to an ingenious and effective design, this ingenious rat trap enjoys quite the popularity nowadays and understandably so. Due to its thoroughly proven snap trap design, it delivers a highly effective solution for rodent control by ridding you of not only rats but other rodents as well. Highly durable and completely reusable by most accounts, it will deliver a quick yet humane kill to the rodent without causing any additional mess. It also needs to be said that this trap benefits from a fully galvanized metal build which makes it easy to clean and guaranteed to withstand a fair amount of abuse before showing any signs of damage.

1Victor Electronic Rat Trap

Few rat traps can rival Victor’s Electric Rat Trap in regards to its ease of use and guaranteed effectiveness. This high-end electronic rat trap can kill up to 50 rats per each set of 4C batteries that you equip it with. Non-toxic and completely poison-free, it uses high-voltage shocks to kill rats in just a couple of seconds in a very humane fashion. Easy to use, all you need to do is to set the bait and turn it on. After it has worked its magic, you can then carry the trap over to a trash bin and simply flip it above the bin to dispose of the rat, thus saving you the trouble of having to touch the rat yourself.

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What To Look For In A Rat Trap

Although rat traps come in all shapes and sizes, you will quickly discover that buying a reliable model takes quite a bit of research beforehand. Among them, the best ones are usually the ones that minimize your exposure to the rats as they carry all sorts of dangerous pathogens and potentially deadly diseases. Even though many people prefer rat poison, that comes with major setbacks on account of how dangerous rat poison can be for pets and small children. The best choice by far is to employ traditional or electric rat traps as they are small, easy to operate, and reasonably effective. But perhaps we should delve into the specifics of what makes a good rat trap to begin with.

Construction

The first thing to consider when buying a rat trap is whether it is strong enough to withstand the test of time and whether you can operate it without the fear of causing any malfunctions. In that regard, traditional spring-operated traps are by far the most popular and understandably so. Although not as high-tech as electric or electronic versions, they do what’s required of them and are usually built to last. If you can, look for rat traps made of hardwood or metal because they are less likely to malfunction through regular use. Not just that but they should also be small enough to be placed in tight places where rats usually walk through.

Bait

You also need to consider the bait issue when first using a rat trap or when you’re considering buying one. For the most part, you are advised to use peanut butter and derivatives due to its poignant flavor. Rats and especially mice love the taste and will often move around trying to eat around the bait, which in turn causes them to activate the spring mechanism. You don’t really want to use dry food because the rat can simply pull it away from the trap and eat it elsewhere. On a related note, look for a trap with a large lever plate that can accommodate larger baits as they increase the probability that the trap will be effective.

Design

A good rat trap has to be easy to operate and equally easy to reposition. You want to place the trap in remote areas of the household where mice and rats like to walk through, areas it is more likely for the trap to be effective. For this to happen you need the trap to be maneuverable and small enough to not stand out from an aesthetic point of view. Not just that but the trap should also be slim enough to be fitted behind furniture or as close to the walls as possible.

Types Of Rat Traps

Depending on how serious your rat problem is, you need o to ask yourself if you really want to kill the rats and whether you want that to happen quickly. Most people tend to lean towards getting rid of the mice and rats without actually having to kill them. That said, there is also the possibility that rats will come back following their scent. Rats are also quite smart, you see, and can trace back paths after you throw them away. It is for this reason that some people prefer to simply kill them as humanely as possible.

  • Electrical Traps – These traps are designed to kill the animal using an electric shock. They usually involve a tunnel small enough to prevent pets from getting in, a tunnel that leads to the bait you have set up for the rat. Once the interior sensor detects the presence of the rat, it triggers the metal floor which then electrocutes the rat in a matter of seconds. What’s interesting about these type of traps is that they can also work without any bait whatsoever because rats are generally attracted to enclosed areas.
  • Multiple Capture Electrical Traps – If you are faced with an infestation, you want to avoid using too many traps on account of how difficult they are to clean. What you should do instead is to invest in a multiple capture electrical trap, a device that can exterminate multiple rats at the same time. These traps are usually equipped with safety features to prevent the rats from escaping the trap once they’re inside, along with features intended to prevent the internal mechanisms from triggering the shock if the trap capsizes at any point.
  • Spring Traps – These are perhaps the most popular traps out there, the type that people have been using around the world for almost a hundred years. Easily recognizable, these traps work with a food bait and they employ a spring-operated metal bar that swings down on top of the rat. We need to point out that these traps sometimes injure the animal, causing it to bleed all over the floor until it expires. Not just that but they can also hurt other small animals or pets if placed out in the open.
  • Glue Traps – It needs to be said that some people use glue traps because of how inexpensive they are. That said, they are just as likely to catch other animals or insects as they are to catch rats, not to mention the tremendous pain and suffering they cause to the rat who is sometimes trapped for days until it dies of thirst. As inhumane as these traps may be, we should point out that they are quite effective once laid out, especially if they are placed in areas where the rats are likely to walk through.