Pest repellers alternative

[Purdy71]

I've just moved into a house that has had a history of mice infestation. It's an old house in a rural area that needs a bit of a refurb, so I can't guarantee the mice won't come back. The previous owner has put plug-in sonic repellers around the house, but I'm wondering if there is a hard-wired solution that I could consider. I've googled but haven't come up with anything.

So (a) does such a thing exist where I don't use up loads of sockets on plug-ins, and/or (b) have I discovered a gap in the market?

TIA.

 

[ferg]

Someone got a Ninja air fryer for christmas

I'd rather tackle the dog as a mole than deal with the aftermath of buying Mrs Ferg an air fryer for Christmas!

 

[nicebutdim]

On the odd occasion we get a mouse I just use the traditional type mouse traps with peanut butter as bait but the cheap nasty ones you buy at the supermarket never work very well until you adjust them to a hair trigger by tweaking them with a pair of long nose pliers.

For a long time I resisted innovation where mouse traps were concerned, but now exclusively use the plastic traps which are simply squeezed to reset.

Mice tend to move furtively, so set traps close to any likely points of ingress at right angles to wall/skirting board. You'd be amazed how many are caught while simply 'passing through'.

 

[littlespark]

what exactly does fried air taste of anyway?

 

[Mike Johnson]

Last mouse nest we found was lined with chewed wire wool.

 

[pc1966]

On the odd occasion we get a mouse I just use the traditional type mouse traps with peanut butter

At our work we have a couple of anti-vandal cabins in the arseend of nowhere so rodents are a risk. We got the "advanced mouse trap" as we figured they might not be dumb mice, but so far only one caught.

We do our best to make sure no obvious entry points, but the caught one was in a cabin with a cable coming up through the floor and the covering card had been knocked away. Personally I much prefer traps to poison as a quicker / more humane end to the mouse, and no risk of a bigger animal eating one with the poison inside.

 

[nicebutdim]

Personally I much prefer traps to poison as a quicker / more humane end to the mouse, and no risk of a bigger animal eating one with the poison inside.

I stayed away from poison for a long time for the reasons you state and also the risk of one dying in the home - that's a stink everyone can do without. I finally relented as several outbuildings attached to the house have proven impossible to seal against rodents and in a rural setting it can prove difficult to dissuade mice from entering the only source of heat for some considerable distance.

I've seen years when only one or two are caught, but in other years they can be relentless. There's no logic to it - you'd expect a greater problem in cold winters, but numbers can be high or low in mild or harsh weather. I kind of like the little critters, but can't have them running around a house eating and wrecking as they please.

Oddly enough rats have never been a problem. We had one instance of them putting in an appearance over the years and I didn't hang about in sorting that.

 

[Moley]

what exactly does fried air taste of anyway?

Don't ask. My wife manages to burn that too :-(

 

[Moley]

Going off on a reverse tangent, my neighbour was moaning about one of the cats in the street (yup, there's loads) having a dump on her front lawn so she bought one of those ultrasonic cat deterrents and spiked it into the lawn. The next day there was a big cat 'richard the third' on the lawn right in front of it

 

[billyblade]

I bought one of those ultrasonic pest repellers once because the wiring to my decking lights had been chewed through. It drove my eldest lad wild because he could hear it, the freak! Maybe he's a superhero?

 

[DPG]

I bought one of those ultrasonic pest repellers once because the wiring to my decking lights had been chewed through. It drove my eldest lad wild because he could hear it, the freak! Maybe he's a superhero?

You'll find younger people can often hear them. But as you get older your hearing range dips well below the 20kHz ideal limit.

These pest repellers emit ultrasonic frequencies, but also have components at less than 20khz sometimes.

My hearing is shocking once things get above the 10khz area.

 

[Mike Johnson]

I did read quite some time ago that certain department stores use a noise generator at a particular frequency to keep hordes of teenage school children out of their stores, don't know if they still do, but would have thought it would be stopped by now.

 

[Mikegh]

I did read quite some time ago that certain department stores use a noise generator at a particular frequency to keep hordes of teenage school children out of their stores, don't know if they still do, but would have thought it would be stopped by now.

Yes . I think maybe I've also heard of householders fitting these units to deter kids outside

 

[Mike Johnson]

I think they may have been banned in department stores by the discrimination police.

 

[pc1966]

I think they may have been banned in department stores by the discrimination police.

Other acoustic teenage deterrents are available, like Frank Sinatra on an endless loop...

 

[Mike Johnson]

Other acoustic teenage deterrents are available, like Frank Sinatra on an endless loop...

True they would not appreciate him, unlike the twit who tried to imitate him with an album of his songs.

 

[Mikegh]

True they would not appreciate him, unlike the twit who tried to imitate him with an album of his songs.

They say he treated his band members well so they'd perform at their best
James Brown on the other hand supposedly flashed his 5 fingers multiple times to indicate how much someone was being fined during a performance for being out of step

 

[littlespark]

Those “teenager” repellants don’t work.
Not since they all started wearing ear buds/ pods or whatever and communicate by text

 

[RetiredNY]

Those “teenager” repellants don’t work.
Not since they all started wearing ear buds/ pods or whatever and communicate by text

Sometime in the 90's some 7-11 convenience stores in the area (I'm USA based) got 2 strange looking "speakers" installed on either side of their store fronts, wasn't until the next decade I saw a report on teenager deterring frequencies. Along that same idea, when we demolished and gutted an entire floor in an office building in NYC, above the suspended ceiling were cylindrical hanging speakers spaced roughly every 20' on center, all daisy chained. (No idea where the cable came from.) Was informed they broadcast a sound that makes employees feel better and become more productive or docile. Then I saw a report on the news that major department stores were pumping a scented gas into their shops that change the moods of adults to make them purchase more items, or willing to spend more than they normally would.