The current experimental evidence relating to absorption spectra, spontaneous decay and photo-bleaching of electrons trapped in non-ionic media is reviewed and the present state of the trapped electron theories which have been applied to these systems is discussed. Localised molecular orbital studies are performed on the hydrogen bonding interaction and the results are discussed in relation to present semicontinuum theories. The relevance of photoionisation spectra to trapped electron absorption in ice is investigated by considering the sensitivity of spectral features to well parameters for some simple potentials. The spontaneous short term decay of electrons at low temperature is investigated by means of a tunneling model which incorporates electron-scaven-ger distribution features. Electron-parent cation distributions are also considered and the results discussed in relation to the 'spur' model. A general photobleaching scheme is presented and quantum efficiencies are evaluated for ice and two organic media. In the former the wavelength dependence is reproduced by means of a mobile electron capture model whilst in the latter, bleaching by means of tunneling from long lived excited states is considered.