In May of 2007, my wife and I moved into a new house. Shortly thereafter, we realized that we shared
our small backyard with several mice. I tried old reliable snaptraps baited with peanut butter. I used both the mouse and rat sizes, with
little success. The rodents went after the bait - the traps snapped - but we got just one mouse out of
ten or so snaps. Next I tried glue traps. Complete failure. The rodents dragged the glue traps all over the yard, and
we didn't catch anything but ants.
So I googled a bit, and I found the RatZapper. I was
skeptical. It's expensive, and uses lots of batteries. But we wanted a solution, and the testimonials seemed genuine. So we went for it. We
ordered an Ultra, and I picked up a
bunch of D cells at Costco.
We told some friends about the rodent problem and the Rat Zapper. Turns out many people have the
same problem, and we got a lot of keep-me-posted requests. Hence this ZapLog.
I used the RatZapper for the first time on 09-Jun-2007. I baited it with the included kibble,
turned it on, and put it in the backyard. Because I'm using it outdoors, I put it in
a plastic bag (of course you have to keep the entrance open). Here are the results:
12-Jun-2007 - False Positive
The red light was flashing, but there was nothing in the kill chamber. Moisture can do this. Still, I
feel like a kid who tears open his biggest birthday present only to find shirts.
11-Jun-2007 - 1 mouse, in the last snaptrap
We had a rat-sized snaptrap lying around the yard. Several days old, minimal peanut butter,
garnished with ants. So of course a pretty big mouse stumbled into it. I'm switching to peanut butter
for the RatZapper.
We had a thunderstorm today. Afterwards, when I was baiting the RZ, some water dripped onto the contacts.
Down in the business end, small blue lightning bolts arced from side to side. Pretty cool.
10-Jun-2007 - Nothing
I guess everyone was home watching the last Sopranos episode.
09-Jun-2007 - 1 mouse
First day, a kill! We came home late, from
Loose Gravel, and the red light was flashing.
At first, I thought we had a rat. But, upon reexamination (don't ask), we've decided this was a
big mouse rather than a rat. My wife says the tail and snout are definitively mouse.
Torso about 6" long. The body
didn't slide right into the trash, though. I had to shake the RatZapper a bit. I suppose if I
were less squeamish I could have yanked it out by the tail, like a party favor.
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