Jake Easton's Better Mousetrap leaves no country for old mice (video)
By Thomas Ricker 
posted December 15th 2009 6:16AM
posted December 15th 2009 6:16AM
posted December 15th 2009 6:16AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Cool device, worst "better mouse trap" ever .
@jon not overboard?
@jon
Yes. Something tells me the world will not be beating a path to his door.
It's be much better if it had jagged blades instead of a simple metal bar.
And a flamethrower.
@Gregorian
Then you'd just have a mess, and I sure don't want to clean up after a filthy rodent that I've been trying to kill.
@Gregorian and a gauss canon. Mice can get really tough these days.
@maapt88 Heck no.. something that cremates on contact would do the trick for my household.. no mess, no fuss ..
With 102 pounds of strike force, it would probably be a mess either way.
@(Unverified) They can be damn smart too, I had to use poison on one because no of the traps I use caught it
Damn, I'm having some problems with either a raccoon or a squirrel trying to invade my attic.
Anyone know what's a good way to deter them or just kill them? I tied a rodent deterrent spray from HomeDepot... doesn't work that well.
Are consumers allowed to buy rat poison?
@Crazy J
Just use a cage trap. Havahart makes some. Throw peanut butter or whatever on the pan.
Noooo, it hurts too much to watch it.
I used to have hamsters :(
I'll stick with the two dollar piece of wood and metal springs if I have a rodent to kill.
@IAmAlive
I'll stick with night vision goggles and a bb gun...
I go with a cat, why fix things nature already fixed.
When I was a kid I remember this old lady going around the house winding mousetraps and we'd wake up in the morning and collect all the dead mice and chuck them into the nearby woods.
The object of the game was to throw the mice and rats the farthest without getting any guts on your clothes.
We didn't have computer games.
@(Unverified) I can see this becoming a sport.
@(Unverified) Only after someone loses an eye. Until then, it's just fun and games...
@(Unverified) It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye - then it's fun and games that you can't see anymore
I was hoping it was going to blow air out of two laser like guns holes. with red blood everywhere! :-(
@scottnz I thought so too
By the way, mice liking cheese is a myth, peanut butter is a far better option. It drives them . . . nutty! Baddaboom TISH.
Good show-and-tell style device, not very practical though. Who'd substitute a nice and simple (and free) bit of spring based snapping power with something which requires a compressor?
Mind you if this thing can spring with enough force to kill the mouse humanely - very quickly, I'm all for it, as I do wonder how long the poor things survive for in a weaker spring based trap. :-(
Just think if it were you trapped there, ribs and spine crushed, chest compressed to extremes, Organs nearly destroyed, and you're still barely breathing in maximum agony. Doesn't bare thinking about.
@Heliosphan
Agreed, I thought the appeal of cheap mouse traps are that they're disposable. Not many people enjoy cleaning up mouse guts.
damn it. for a moment I thought they meant it kills mice by delivering a powerful burst of compressed air that is somehow able to instantly kill mice...
they should just go back to using real lasers to burn up a mouse. (btw any laser that is wider than a dime can potentially blow up a creature the size of a mouse)
@MiketheVee You know what would be really cool? If it shot a tube into the mouse, and then inflated it until it popped!
Clean up on aisle 6,7, and 12
There will be blood
- everywhere
@SmokemeaKipper
Yeah, the regular spring-loaded traps make for blood splatter, which needs to be cleaned up or else the mice/rats will look elsewhere for food.
I do not approve of this product.
The awesomest mousetrap I've ever witnessed was my father. He used to catch unsuspecting mice entering our house with his bare hands, subsequently releasing them outside in a safe spot. Of course they returned later, but that was part of the attraction.
While not as pretty (or likely as expensive to produce) these electric rodent zappers on Mcmaster are probably pretty effective. I'll be they also don't produce any guts explosions:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#7499t61/=4xw8s6
@kleptophobiac
McMaster really DOES sell EVERYTHING!
I love that catalog...all 40 pounds of it.
@kleptophobiac they don't, but mice tend to piss while they get shocked it becomes a little stinky. effective nonetheless.
@Shovel Man: My friends and I joke that as long as the McMaster and Digikey warehouses survive the nuclear holocaust, we could rebuild the infrastructure of modern society faster than you can say overnight shipping. Other than the over-optimistic timing, I think it's not far from the truth...
@kleptophobiac
HOLY SHIT, THESE GUYS HAVE FUCKING EVERYTHING! FUCKING SAVED!!!!!!!!!!1111111!!!!!!!!!11111111
Cat.
Dart gun.
@therockr92 5-gallon bucket. The sides are too high for the mouse to jump out of and too slick for it to climb.
Add cat, and lid (because the little bugger might get one lucky leap and jump off the cat out of the bucket.)
@(Unverified)
Or one of those aliens from V
@(Unverified) Just what I was thinking, It's the perfect device to get rid of my neighbors cats.
From the title I was hoping for a Javier Bardem saying "tails" and then a pneumatic piston to the head.
So...do you think this trap would matter in a situation like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg3W-vVX1kc
I would like one of those for my car. The thieves will think it's a new stereo and end up with cracked knuckles for their troubles.
fucking cruel! catch the mouse alive dont kill it!
How would you like 102 pounds in the face?!
@fuckoff
Are you vegan?
@AaronX vegan?! No why would I be vegan, but I know that I would not appreciate 102 pounds of punch in my neck with a stainless steel bar.
@fuckoff
Yeah, better to let them starve to death over days in a trap than have instant death where it's too fast for them to actually feel the pain before they die. I don't like death traps because of the mess, but your logic is kinda flawed here.
@fuckoff
And how do you think the meat you eat is killed? Humanely, or cheaply?
@Ghen mm, but why kill the mouse in the first place, why not catch it and have the trap tweet you to empty it. Grab the trap and dump it at your job or in your neighbors yard....
@AaronX I dont eat meat I am vegetarian. Can I ask you if you kill all the animals you eat yourself?
@fuckoff
My mistake then. No, I don't, but I know the animals used for food have worse lives than this yet many people don't care.
That is the most (using the scale of stupid) lame and useless contraption I've seen in a long while. The phrase, Keep it simple Stupid, was coined for items like this that throw careless amounts of technology and gray matter at a problem that was deemed solved years ago and with far less points of failure.
And you wonder how Skynet could happen?
@Boyo Extra points for working in a Terminator reference with pertinence.