Catch a Mouse Electronically?: Great Idea?

Patent#US 6865843 is a Portable Electrical Mouse Trap that has a housing in the shape of a cat to which a handle is attached. It offers bait that insultingly isn’t even real cheese! The Portable Electrical Mouse Trap is cruel by many standards, as it forces the poor creature to choose between two opposing instincts; fear of house cats and the wonder of smelly cheese. The way it works is that a vacuum sucks the mouse into the collection chamber where the mouse is suffocated. A speaker informs a user when the collection chamber is full.

The following series of illustrations depict exactly how it works.

One user of the Portable Electric Mouse Trap came up with a solution, which utilizes the best the device has to offer and is kind to the mice as well. He used the trap with a tube with a spring-loaded trigger. The mouse would walk on it and get thrown into a chamber, but the user would then let it go free in the field where it should have been in the first place. The user also suggests that chocolate gleans better results than smelly cheese.

Pest control is a topic that has inspired many inventions. Consider “This Scarecrow® Really Works!” and “Great Invention Idea? Kill Bugs Fast with Radiation Gun!”

The Portable Electric Mouse Trap is really quite ingenious; it just needs to be more humane. It could also be used for other purposes, like sucking up car keys and coins and receipts from purchases. It could also be very considerate and separate all these things into their own individual compartments!

I’ll pass on the Portable Electric Mousetrap because I don’t think my cats would ever forgive me if I didn’t. (I also don’t like to be cruel to little creatures whose only mistake is that they somehow found their way to my house.)

Via Patently Silly