[nate_meurer]

On those snap traps, you can bend the wire that holds back the spring downward in slight increments until the trap is so sensitive you can almost set off by blowing on it. This is the only way I was able to clear an infestation of juvenile mice years ago. Before this modification, the small mice were eating the bait without triggering the traps.

[throwawayboise]

Did you bait them with peanut butter? That has always worked for me.

I've also heard of people gluing an almond to the trap. The mouse will tug on it and snap!goodbye.

[nate_meurer]

I use bread, or nothing. I've caught a lot of mice in unbaited traps. Mice are super curious creatures, and if the trap is in their path they often poke at it out of curiosity.

Bread works great; I moisten it and smoosh it into the trap platform where it hardens and must be chewed to consume it. I avoid oily and stick stuff because I reuse my traps. No sense throwing out perfectly good traps IMO.

I hate killing mice BTW. I have a couple of giant mice in my back yard who have completely annihilated the infestation of earwigs that plagued us for years. I see those mice out there nearly every day, and I tell them thank you, and I beg them not to enter my house. So far they seem to be listening.

[throwawayboise]

I have no issues with mice as long as they are not in my house. But I don't mind killing them, I dump the corpse outside and it's always gone in less than a day, so some other critter is getting a meal.

[jdmichal]

I set mine with grapes, cut in half, with the grape skin in the trigger. The grape skin seems to be strong enough to prevent removal without triggering.