HOMESTEAD Heavy Duty Live Trap - Professional Style One-Door Live Animal Traps for Rabbit, Squirrel, Possum, Skunk, Kitten, Mink

I wish I had learned about this trap a few years ago! I’ve tried just about everything to catch these little, extremely fast, hole-borrowing, terrorizing chipmunks that have tormented me for years. They’ve made my stone steps wobbly, dug holes underneath my driveway and around tree roots, and even managed to get into my car. They tore a hole in the back seat near the buckle and gave birth in the spare-tire compartment! They also fill my water meter with hard-packed dirt, making it nearly impossible to access the shutoff valve in case of an emergency. My neighbor told me about a cage trap they had picked up at an auction that had been working for them. I immediately came to Amazon to find one, ordered this trap, and WOW—it is bringing me my peace back! I've had it close to two months now. I've caught 27 so far and still catching on a daily basis. I had no idea there were this many around here. I don't use any bait. I simply set the trap, and it doesn't take long before they enter and get trapped. I come hear today to purchase a second one. 9/30/26. It’s interesting to see the mixed reviews. I guess it may not work for everyone, but it certainly works for me! The trigger is a little touchy, but honestly, I think that’s a good thing—it needs to be sensitive to increase the chances of a catch. I absolutely love mine and couldn’t be happier with how well it has worked for me! I honestly wish I had discovered this trap years ago. It has been a game-changer for me and has finally given me some peace of mind around my home.

I bought this sight-unseen so wasn't sure what to expect. Trap worked perfectly for gray squirrels, caught two with no problem in the first afternoon of operation. Trap is just the right size for squirrels, is well built and door snaps down quickly with no time for squirrel to escape.

I tried a well-known competitor's squirrel trap that my neighbor had, however it was not long enough. It would trip, but trap door would not lock closed because a squirrel body would prevent full closure and then he could just back out. This Homestead trap is high quality with a stable trigger allowing me to catch 3 squirrels over a two week period. It also has a heavy duty closure lock to ensure it stays closed. I watched the 3rd squirrel enter it and trip the door, however he did not realize he was trapped until through eating several minutes later. For bait I used nuts embedded in peanut butter spread on 2 pieces of carboard; a small one outside the trap (appetizer) and the large (meal) one in front of the trap pressure plate.

This trap is useless and suggest you buy a different product. Its nearly impossible to set due to a flawed design. I just threw mine in the trash. If I could give it zero stars, I would.

Update: Caught my first rat yesterday. Raised my review from 3 to 4 stars. After the modifications I made to the trap, it works perfectly. The metal is still substandard to the Havahart trap in my opinion, but good enough so far. I was hoping this would be the same as the Havahart trap I bought years ago and still have. It's not. The metal seems thinner and cheaper than to Havahart for sure. The latch has issues. I corrected it by squeezing the area with pliers where the latch goes into the sides of the trap, each side, front and back. Works much better now. We will see how it performs. Originally the latch was very stiff and would not latch properly. Hopefully the problem is solved with a few squeezes from the pliers.

It worked great

Solid construction. Easy to use. Metal fasteners instead of plastic, so they won't deteriorate in the heat/sun.

This trap is very very similar to the Havahart model 1025, which has been discontinued. In my photo you can see this trap next to a 2 year old model 1025 and a 15 year old model 1025. All the diminensions seem identical to the point where it appears that the parts may be interchangeable. However, this is where the similarity ends. There is significant difference in the materials used. The Havahart appears to be galvanized steel, including the control rods. This new trap appears to be plated or powder coated steel, with a coated wire cage, and a chrome like finish on its control rods. I would not call this trip flimsy, but the doors do not seem as heavy as on the Havahart. So on the plus side, this new trap uses one of my favorite trap designs, but on the minus side, the materials used introduce some issues. First of all, the door might be too light on this trap because they are spring loaded as opposed to the gravity driven doors on the Havahart. Second, the Havahart stays open by the friction between two control rods. I'm assuming that since they are both galvanized, they have a bit more friction. The chrome-like rods of this new trap are very slick and have little friction, so they resorted to making one edge of each rod flat so they would stick to each other better. But this is compromized by the trap's biggest issue ... The most significant issue with this trap is that nothing worked out of the box. If I was not familiar with the Havahart and had years of good experience with the basic design, I would have written the trap off. But having that experience, I knew the trap design was basically solid and proceeded to bending various parts in order to get the trap functional. I had the two Havahart traps as a reference, and it still took me about 20 minutes of bending various pieces to get the trap functional. The last part was the control arms. If your arms are not meeting on each of their flat surfaces and if your trip plate is not horizontal when the trap is armed, then you know you have more bending to do. So in summary, it is a great design that I believe has been compromised by build quality in terms of materials used and post assembly inspection. I have mine working, but from my experience, I think it very unlikey your trap will work fresh out of the box. The two Havaharts by comparison worked great on the first try. UPDATE: I checked again, and the Havahart 1025 actually does have spring loaded doors. I was wrong about that. I took a couple of photos of what I think are the main issue. Note that the Havahart version has an extra rivet or weld that this trap doesn't have, but I don't think that is the main issue. The main difference is that they have crimped around the holes where the latch levers go, and this trap did not. When I crimped the hole on the new trap, it worked much better. Took 1 second to do with a pliers. I attached 3 photos, which are the Havahart and this trap side by side, this trap before crimping, and thistrap after crimping. The crimping is 80% of the problem and takes 1 second to do with some pliers.

Muy útil para captura de algunos animales. Algo excesivo el costo y un detalle en el diseño que se podría mejorar. Pero recomendable.