RODENT TRAP

Each mouse resets the trap for the next mouse.

PatentUS 2,501,490

PatentedMarch 21, 1950

InventorClifford Osmon Back

OfSafford, Arizona

Patent drawing of a rectangular metal rodent trap case showing internal partitions forming an entrance runway, transverse passageway, reset runway, and central pen, with hinged floor plates, cranks, links, a rolling-ball positioning tube, and non-return gates labeled with numbered reference lines. — click to zoom

A mouse enters through an open door toward bait; its weight on a hinged floor plate closes the door behind it. The mouse flees through a transverse passageway into a reset runway and drops onto a second hinged plate. Its weight there rotates a shaft that reopens the entrance door for the next mouse. The mouse then passes through a non-return gate into a central pen, where it is held until the lid is opened.

“After entering opening 5 the rodent 60 traps itself by the closing of door 12, and again resets the trap by dropping onto the free end of plate 33.”— Clifford Osmon Back, from the specification

And the world did not beat a path to his door.

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