DON'T USE RAT/MOUSE POISON!

We catch a ton of mice at my shop....so many that we have a scoreboard on the wall. We are surrounded by woods on 3 sides so each winter we usually catch around 75+

That being said.....there is no sense in re inventing the wheel.

The spring loaded broken neck traps they've been selling for 100 years now work just fine. Hide them under stuff if you have cats or dogs

To the OP- sorry for your loss. About 15 years ago we had an ant problem and our puppy ate about 5 of the powder traps behind furniture while we went to dinner, fortunately he came out of it fine