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Another self built trap from 1940s America.  Frustratingly there are no details on how it works, other than that it is a drowning trap.  I’d love to have seen a photo of the insides.

The caption on the reverse reads:

“John Gawron (2014 w. 19th St) points to where the rat enters the trap while Joyce Maravec (aged 6) points to the container of water into which the rat falls into and is drowned, container is built so that rat cannot escape — trap is home built and considered to be a good repeater due to the fact no blood is spilled ..”

Also interesting to note that there is more than a passing resemblance to the German Bender Automatic mouse trap of 1902.

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My dad made my first one of these to keep in the back of the Landrover.  Such a simple but invaluable device I now have 3 or 4 scattered about the place and I always keep a spare in the motor to give away in emergencies.  Once you’ve found yourself with boots covered in thick mud, (or worse), and have had one of these to hand you’ll never want to be without one again.

You can buy these easily enough but they’re so simple and cheap to make it seems a shame to pay good money for one.  We put the attached instructions together a few years ago and have shared them on a couple of forums since then, but have just realised that we really should include it here.

I make most of mine from floorboard off cuts that I can’t resist when I see them poking out of skips.  A great beginners project and maybe one for kids, but make sure they’re supervised when using the tools.

Download Welly-Puller plans

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We had a few hits last summer from people looking to make a wasp trap.

This is just another variant on the Tunnel Trap passive door principle and is very quick and easy to make.

All you need is a large clear plastic pop bottle and a sharp knife.

Cut the bottle into two pieces - trying to keep thecut as square as possible. Make the closed end about 2/3 of the length.

Then invert the short section and push it gently inside the base piece so that the sides overlap. Push too hard and the sides will buckle and make gaps that the wasps could escape from. It needs to be a snug fit. And there you have your completed trap !

Pour into the trap some suitably sweet and sticky liquid bait – I tend to use a mixture of pop and fruit juice but if you’re being pestered by wasps use whatever they’re coming after.  You need about 2 inches of liquid in the bottom of the trap.

Wasps will be attracted to the bait – fly or crawl down the funnel and not be able to find the hole to escape.

Don’t be tempted to mess with the trap once it has started catching – wasps caught it are likely to be a little annoyed and accidental release is not recommended.   Leave well alone and eventually the exhausted wasps will drown. Then open the two sections, tip the liquid away and reset.

After reading this page on our old site, ’WhooWhoop’ emailed me to say: “Just a little tip for your wasp trap – add a couple of drops of fairy liquid to the lure – breaks the surface tension, so the wasps drown and sink.  Otherwise you get a crust of floating wasps and a trap full of angry females!”