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Is Untrasonic Electronic Pest Control, Effective? 129

Posted by Cliff from the she-deafened-me-with-science! dept.
tedgyz asks: "I have declared war on the pests in my house. I am tired of hearing the scurrying of mice and squirrels in my walls. Worse - I am tired of the nests littered with droppings buried in boxes in the attic. I have used standard traps, and although successful, it seems that new rodents or more than happy to replace the ones I've killed. Are ultrasonic deterrents effective?"

"I've searched the web, but I can only find marketing material from manufacturers and distributors. I'm looking for cold, hard facts.

  1. Do ultrasonic deterrents really keep rodents out of your house?
  2. What is the range?
  3. Do they last, or do the rodents eventually return?
  4. Are they truly innocuous to dogs and cats?
  5. How do you measure success?"
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Is Untrasonic Electronic Pest Control, Effective? More

Is Untrasonic Electronic Pest Control, Effective?

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  • Tell me more.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by tedDancin ( 579948 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @03:32AM (#5997075)
    What is this "Untrasonic" technology you speak of? Some kind of super-sonic, but not quite super-sonic frequency perhaps?
    • "Frink: Mwa-hey, bwa-hai. The compression and expansion of the longitudinal waves cause the erratic oscillation, you can see it there, of the neighbouring particles."

      AND

      "Frink: You've got to listen to me. Elementary chaos theory tells us that all robots will eventually turn against their masters and run amok in an orgy of blood and the kicking and the biting with the metal teeth and the hurting and shoving."

      AND not to mention:

      "Frink: Well it's just a prototype, with proper funding I'm confident this lit

    • Re:Tell me more.. (Score:4, Funny)

      by bakes ( 87194 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @08:26AM (#5997707) Journal
      What is this "Untrasonic" technology you speak of? Some kind of super-sonic, but not quite super-sonic frequency perhaps?

      Well, 'un' usually implies 'not'. So it could be sub-sonic (opposite of super-sonic), but I'm pretty much inclined to believe that it is 180 degree phase-shifted 'trasonic' frequencies. Very rare, which is why they are so expensive. Insects are generally afraid of them because they don't occur naturally.
    • The Merriam-Webster dictionary [m-w.com] doesn't know what untrasonic [m-w.com] is, either.
  • I do know that those pest repellers can drive me out of a room pretty quickly.
    Whenever I get near one I get a horrible headache after a few seconds that just keeps getting worse and worse until I flee, or can disable the damned device.

    My advice would be to avoid them. Never let one into your house or workplace, destroy any you find, and try to drive the companies that make them out of business, sterilize the ground on which the factories that built them once stood (after your burn the buildings, and before you salt the ashes), and force the people who invented/built them into a lonely exile in Antarctica.

    Of course, I might be slightly biased.

    • Re:I don't know what they do to insects. (Score:5, Funny)

      by MasterofVoid ( 608568 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @03:53AM (#5997126)
      It would been nice if the parent had mentioned in his post that he is a rat himself, thus the problems with the pest control gadgets..
    • I to can hear these little boxes. Fortunately I do not suffer from pain when I am near them; rather I hear them as an annoying high-pitched whine.

      Oh, and yes I am a homo-sapient.
    • I live in an area surrounded by pasture and ditches. The mosquitos during the summer are terrible. There has to be some farm chemical or something in them that isn't in mosquitos elsewhere, because when I get a mosquito bite here, I get a 1.5 inch diameter red spot around the bite, but elsewhere I just get the usual small bump. It's really a pain when trying to do anything outside during the summer.

      A week or two ago there was an ad in the paper for an outdoor ultrasonic insect repellant that claimed one
      • As reenactors, we're out in the summer most weekends. A Civil War doctor reenactor friend of mine swears by the lozenge-shaped mosquito repellers sold at Walgreens -- They're supposed to mimic the sound of dragon-fly's wingbeat noise. Last year, using this, he had remarkably few skeeter bites. He DID, however, have some lonely dragon flies around his tent occasionally...
        • You mean the Coleman ones? I had one of those, and it didn't work *at all*. It may have actually attracted the insects...
          • The coleman is a two part system, one unit is suposed to repell, and the other attracts, hopefully away from the area you're in. Mosquitoes are strongly attracted to bodyheat and carbon dioxide.
            mosquites repellants
            DEET (insect repellent)
            Avon Skin-so-Soft work for some people (works for me for 2 hrs) but not for others
            lemony smelling stuff
            citronaella, lemon grass, try just sparying the area with plain old lemon juice.

            some people swear but oraly takeing garlic and yeast tablets, I think they may have some

        • Cheater! (Score:3, Funny)

          by mcmonkey ( 96054 )
          There were no Walgreens during the civil war.

      • Re:Does anyone know if the insect ones work? (Score:5, Informative)

        by gordguide ( 307383 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @07:09PM (#6002606)
        No, they don't work on insects (at least, nobody has been able to get them to work in independant testing labs). Apparently, this is due to the fact that mosquitoes are nearly deaf.

        You can buy expensive CO2 generator/electrostatic killers; they work to a certain extent. By that I mean they attract mosquitoes, they kill mosquitoes, but they don't kill as many as they attract. Net result: more mosquitoes than you had before.

        You can buy bug zappers. They work as well, but apparently there are serious health hazards associated with haveing microscopic bits of blown up insects landing in your food. "Zapper" is an interesting description; but the correct term is more like "vaporizing".

        You can use Citronella candles, and citronella bug sprays. They work, but not so well; some lose effectiveness after as little as 15 minutes, some as long as 2 hours.

        You can use Avon Skin-so-soft, which works for 15 minutes. Apparently mosquitoes hate slick skin creams of all kinds, so plain-jane lotions work as well and as long.

        DEET is the only thing that actually deals with flying insects over a decent period of time. Currently the recommendation is to use no stronger than 30% DEET formulas.

        Other, "envoiornmentally friendly" spray/apply lotions work, but for short periods of time. Since most should not be used more than twice a day, that doesn't help if you're really outdoors.

        Mosquito coils work because they contain a pesticide. You decide if that's what you want your kids breathing.

        Bug jackets work; remember that if the screen touches your skin they can bit through it.

        What really works is getting rid of the breeding sites. A single coke can with an inch of rainwater can grow about ten thousand mosquitoes; you have your work cut out for you, but it does make a real difference. If you have a pond, put fish in it. They eat the larvae.

        There are about 90 kinds of North American mosquitoes, and they have specific habitat preferences. Thus, in the rain, you get the kind that like humidity and lower temps. At evening, you get the kind that like the sun going down and the temps falling a bit. So, chances are that the kind that give you the reaction will either die off sometime during the season, or you're having consistent weather they like, but getting at the breeding sites is your true best option.

        You may well be having an allergic reaction of some kind as well; since allergies are cumulative (ie the reaction doesn't happen until you get some personally significant number of bites, a threshold you may have exceeded). I would use DEET but it's up to you.
        • Thanks for the info. With tens of acres of fields around (Though not all contiguous -- the average house spacing on my street is 150-200 yards) I'd probably have to get all my neighbors to regularly mow their pastures and cover their irrigation ditches. There's also a ditch that runs along the street that would have to be covered. There are trucks that drive by about once a week or once every other week spraying some kind of pesticide into the air from the road, but that seems to have little or no effect
          • The best option in your situation might be to talk up the CO2 attractor/bug killer machines. They can cost up to $600, maybe more. But, if you know a gadget-crazy neighbor, preferrably a lot or two away, get him (somehow) to buy one. It will attract mosquitoes from your yard to his.

            Perhaps a friendly neighborhood barbeque, some free liquor, and a catalog from The Sharper Image on the table might get the conversation in the right direction ;-) Nature will supply the topic (a few mosquitoes). Say you heard t

  • Short Answer: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @03:59AM (#5997145) Journal
    Who knows? Probably not. I vaguely remember a Choice magazine article on them showing no statistically provable difference. Wait, maybe that was the EMP type ones.

    Some of those ads are a bit worrying - "Drive pests away by creating a unbearable ultrasonic field plus an annoying EMP in your house wiring!"

    I think that having anything in your house that causes discomfort to animals that are *still* genetically fairly close to humans is probably a bad thing. Doubly so for the EMP ones. After all, a lot of human trials start out on the humble lab rat.

    I wouldn't be convinced until there was a long term and scientifically rigorous study on continuous exposure to humans (oh, and the pests you're trying to drive off too!).

    • Genetically similar (Score:5, Informative)

      by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7&cornell,edu> on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @08:45AM (#5997813) Homepage
      It's a known fact that some animals (especially smaller ones) can hear a much wider frequency range than humans can.

      "genetically similar" means nothing - A few kilohertz can make a lot of difference.

      But one has to be careful not to get TOO close to the human hearing range, as within 3-4 kHz of the human hearing range, it causes US discomfort. A bit above that and it won't cause pain for humans at all, but will sound like an unholy shriek to a small animal.

      Note: I'm talking about the ultrasonic-only ones. And having multiple small units scattered around is probably better for our ears than one large super-loud unit, as one superloud unit might still have enough SPL to damage someone's ears even though we can't hear it. (Although it helps that the ear won't have any resonances at those frequencies - This is why smaller animals can hear higher freqs, smaller ear canals = higher resonant freqs.)

  • The most effective solution (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ralphclark ( 11346 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @04:00AM (#5997146) Journal
    A couple of years ago I moved into a house in the country, which was full of mice. The previous occupants had laid down traps and poison, to no avail.

    Shortly after moving in we got ourselves two kittens, just weaned. By the time they were six months old there were no more mice! Any new would-be immigrants get dealt with by the time they reach the garden. We are also free from rats, moles, voles, shrews and anything else that moves. Pretty much as you would expect!

    The secret is not to overfeed them so they stay healthy, agile and a little bit hungry most of the time.

    They're also very nice cats as it happens, very loyal, affectionate and playful. They're always goofing around and making us laugh. It feels like they're part of the family.
    • I had owned 6 cats growing up 2 males 4 females.

      and in my opinion
      If you want a mouser get a female.
      if you want a friend get a male.

      oh but if its 12:30 am and you hear them scratching at the door...look out the window first and make sure they don't have a mouse, before letting them in!

      • You may be right but mine are both males. Neutering doesn't seem to have affected their hunting ability either. Oddly, it's the big lazy-looking one who's the most prolific hunter. He's always trying to bring birds into the house. You'd never guess, going by his appearance alone.
      • Or get yourself one of these [quantumpicture.com].

      • If you want a mouser get a female.
        if you want a friend get a male.

        I can personally attest to this. Something about female cats makes them much less 'social' (in my experience) but much more prone to hunt -- well -- anything. Snakes, lizards, mice, rats, bugs, miniblinds...

        My male cats, on the other hand, have been very friendly (almost to the point of being puppy-ish) but can't be bothered to hunt

        A poster above mentioned to keep them only slightly fed -- I'm gonna have to disagree with this one. I

        • Males are definitely much more affectionate, but they have also been the best hunters (in my experience). My female was a year-old stray when I found her, and she's only caught one or two birds. Voles, now, she's terror on them, and a flying insect signs its death warrant when it enters the area of our back patio.

          But the big males are the squirrel-killers. Of course, if you like squirrels, then you probably want something that sticks to mice.

          • Squirrels are too small too make much of a meal, but they are pretty tasty if you can catch enough. The secret is to make sure that you don't overcook them...

            Oh, you meant if you like looking at squirrels. Uh, nevermind.

        • That is not how they show affection. They bring dead animals to the place that they feel safe.

          It's just like how you go to the bathroom or bedroom to rub one out, rather than doing it in the living room with the blinds open.

        • My male cat was great at catching mice, problem was he played with them and batted them around for a while, but never ate them, just left them sitting around.
        • Not feeding your cat any wet food is cruel and unhealthy. Besides the fact that cats *love* wet food (hey, *you* could live on granola, too, but would you WANT to?), wet food is much better for cats.

          If you don't believe me, just think about it and use some common sense. Cats are carnivores. Evolution designed them over millions of years to eat fresh muscle meat. Not rice or corn meal - MEAT. Most dry foods are 90% rice or corn, many of the cheaper brands contain very unhealthy levels of ash, and even
      • Cats that are overfed will bring you "treats." Cats that are kept slightly hungry all the time would never bother to share with you, which is just what we're hoping for, right? People always complain about how aloof cats are. Just don't overfeed them. Believe me they'll be REALLY happy to see you when you get home.
    • I'm a cat lover (No not that way.) but if you're not I think that some dog breeds are good mousers.

      You'll have to do some research though, choosing one that fits your situation is a personal decision.

      • The terrior breeds have a reputation as good ratter/mouser. Ferrets are excelent mousers, they are very social and will demand a lot of attention from you, but will provide a riot of entertainment too. Ferrets feces stink, descenting doesn't help, so they are not for everyone.

    • Also get a Moggie or Heinz 57 from a shelter, get it young and handle it frequently to socialise it. Dont get a pedigree most of which are useless at hunting, and couldn't hunt to save their lives.

  • They work, in the right cases (Score:5, Informative)

    by Proteus ( 1926 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @04:06AM (#5997154) Homepage Journal
    They do work in certain cases -- I have two in my house (kitchen and computer room), and they have stopped my mouse problem.

    Rooms with odd geometry or many sound-absorbing obstructions don't work very well. A good rule of thumb is that these will only protect areas an IR remote would reach from the outlet they're plugged into -- in other words, line-of-sight.

    One word of advice -- don't go cheap! The cheap ones audibly click, and give sensitive people headaches. The good ones are unnoticable to pets and humans.

    As for range, it varies -- but usually only one room per device. See labeling!
  • Note: CmdrTaco is not a good person to take lessons from.
  • I used to live on the 2nd floor up in an old building. Some builders came and started ripping apart the basement of the building: pretty soon we had mice running around our flat, scared off from the lower levels.

    I bought a pair of Ultrasonic repellers for about £80, or USD$120. At the same time I put some poison down, which certainly thinned the numbers out.

    But I think it was the Ultrasonic babies that kept them away; I don't think you can rely on them to rid yourself of the pests, but they are defi

    • Re:Yeah, they work I reckon. (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Let me see if I've got this straight. You simultaneously deployed both poison (a method known to be effective) and some ultrasonic gizmo of dubious utility -- something for which you paid a significant amount of money and therefore whose success you are emotionally invested in, if only subconsciously.

      Then, satisfied with the final outcome (and ignoring the poison's possible role in this outcome) you proclaim the gizmo to be effective and worthwhile. Indeed, according to your account not only was it effec
  • Well, main thing is you need to find out how they are getting in and be prepared to seal it off once they have been ejected.

    As for ultrasonics, I think you will find a cheap radio tuned to a Talk station will probably be as effective in driving them away.

    Also worth investigating would be investing in a cat or similar predator.

  • Music? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Filik ( 578890 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @07:24AM (#5997557)
    Just keep your stereo at full blast 24/7, looping through some death metal mp3's. Should keep all pests away, neighbours and spouses included.

    -Filik.
    • Actually, all the poster would need is the cat's urine. The smell of cat urine is enough to drive away most/all rodents.

      Best of all, the poster wouldn't have to put up with said cat clawing furniture, said cat's hair covering everything, and said cat's litter box or vet bills.

      Then again, I don't know of any way to get cat urine without actually owning a cat, so..

  • security patch (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BigBir3d ( 454486 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @07:30AM (#5997569) Journal
    You need to do more than kill them, or drive them out. Think of it is a security problem, and patch the holes. If you keep killing them, and they keep coming back, there are problems. For them to be living in your residence a few things have to available to them; easy entrance, food, water, and shelter. The last you can't do anything about, short of tearing / burning down your place. But you can patch holes, clean the attic, fix leaking pipes, remove pond from the back yard, etc. Overall, just make it un-appealing for the critters to live there.

    Have you tried any professional services?

    IMO, the sonic thing is a total scam. Many of my old customers tried that, and eventually gave up. (I got out of the pest control business in '97 or so)
    • How do you patch the holes in a 150 year old house. The foundation is mountain stone, it has more holes than Windows!!
      • I like foam-in-a-can for patching holes too big for caulk. I am told that rodents don't like the taste of it. Only wear old clothes and shoes and perhaps disposable rubber or vinyl gloves because that foam can drip, and it is essentially crazy glue. And a little foam goes a long way because it expands as it sets, but if you over foam, you can always break off the pieces extruded from the holes you filled after it sets.

        I am taking care of a place out in the country, and to solve a squirrel problem I 1)

    • Well, your old customers were a self-selecting group. I'd reckon that no, you wouldn't hear from anyone who had had success with an ultasonic repeller device, because then they wouldn't need you...

  • Mousies yes, Roaches no. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Big Sean O ( 317186 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @08:08AM (#5997651)
    We've seen mice and roaches in our apartment so I bought a small ultrasonic thingie for the kitchen.

    The mice appear to have fled the area. We caught a mousie in the front room (glue trap), but we haven't seen any mice in the back of the house. If you can stand finding a dead mouse now and then, I recommend glue traps.

    The roaches don't seem to mind the ultrasonic at all.

    Surprisingly, Chrysantemum seeds work against roaches. We set some out a while back and the roaches dissapeared. Apparently there are more effective breeds (of seeds, not roaches), so do some research.

  • Speaking as a homeowner... (Score:5, Funny)

    by clintp ( 5169 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @08:09AM (#5997655)
    You can't just kill the pests, you have to kill them and send a message to the others. I suggest making little crosses and crucifying the mice and leaving those aroung the attic. (Hint, use staples.) Also leaving squirrel heads on small metal pikes seems effective. Keeps other people from snooping around in your attic as well.
    • But really this is a little more effective if you get a group of pests and kill all but one. Set him free so he can go tell his buddies that they don't want to mess around with you any more.

  • They must work! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ben Jackson ( 30284 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @08:44AM (#5997809) Homepage
    There were some moles in my yard, so I bought some of the vibrating stakes that are supposed to repell them. And a load of D cell batteries to put in them. I never did get around to installing them, but the moles are gone now.

    By the way, does anyone know of any other devices that use D cells these days? I have a bunch in my junk drawer...
    • A simple solution is to just buy the highest speed CPU and Case fans you can, place a microphone by the case while running, and pipe through the speakers. Seems to be effective not only for eliminating rodents, but also larger pests, including children, spouses, cats, neighbors, and of course lawyers and politicians. The 'D' batteries are great for flashlights, so you can find the fuse box when you overcrank the amp and blow the lights.
    • Those things were the biggest damned scam I ever encountered. We had a mole problem, so we decided to get one stake and put it where the problem was worst, on a trial basis. Bam! Not a day later, the mole problem around that damned thing increased by a factor of at least two. Not only did it not work as advertised, but it actually attracted moles. Soon after we stopped using them, we got a cat (not just for the moles, but for a pet as well). No more mole problem.
    • the noisey things might keep them from coming in if there is nothing for them to eat, but if they are hungery, and you have food for them they'll be there. Moles eat lawn grubs, get rid of the grubs, you'll get rid of the moles. A good lawn insectcide works wonders, apply half in one direction, then the other half at 90 degrees for complete coverage.

      go over the lawn with a verticutter, it'll cut the turf into strips so the mole burrows punch through and the cat can catch them in the meantime/

  • Get a Mouser (Score:4, Informative)

    by hymie3 ( 187934 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @08:48AM (#5997828)

    Do ultrasonic deterrents really keep rodents out
    of your house?
    No. Not at all. What they do is make the environment less attractive to the rodents. If you are in a duplex, the rodents run next door. If you own your own house, they get used to it (how long did it take you to ignore the traffic/train/plane while you are sleeping?)

    What is the range?
    See above "no" answer.

    Do they last, or do the rodents eventually return?
    See above answer.

    Are they truly innocuous to dogs and cats?
    The mouse chirpers bug the crap out of my dog. On a more important note, they bug the crap out of me. (my wife would say "insert obvioius pest joke here") The mosquito ones are the worst, but I can definitely hear all of the "pest control" ultrasonic gizmos. Maybe I'm just picking up on a weird harmonic, but they're more annoying than the high pitched whine of older TVs, to me.

    If TVs and flourescent lights don't bother you, then this won't bother you, but be assured that your pets *will* notice.

    How do you measure success?"
    Decrease in mouse turds always worked for me.

    If you're seriously interested in getting rid of mice, get a cat. Get a female cat (spayed!) from the humane society. Keep it outside if you don't like cats (they like to roam, anyway).

    Best rodent control are mousers. Female cats make the best mousers.

  • Homebrew (Score:3, Informative)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7&cornell,edu> on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @08:53AM (#5997854) Homepage
    Chances are that you could make a pretty decent ultrasonic repeller for a fraction of the price of commercial ones. Look around at some electronics sites, but the basics would be:

    555 timer - Set it to free-run somewhere in the 26-30 kHz range. You might have to experiment a bit. It will probably be most effective 1-2 kHz over the highest frequency that causes you discomfort.

    Audio amplifier - LM386 audio amps are cheap and easy to use. They're a high-power op-amp for all practical purposes.

    The silicon and additional passives would cost you under $10 most likely, which leaves you $20-30 for a speaker with good ultrasonic response and still be a fraction of the price of these $80-120 commerical units people talk about.

    Bonus is that you can retune it down a few kHz if you want to intentionally piss someone off. This is more effective if you add circuitry that sweeps the frequency over a few kHz. (This might hold true for animals too.)
  • ...come to think of it, I've never used them period. But my folks bought one type (I can't remember if it was ultrasonic or EMP) and my aunt bought the other (to compare and then buy a second of whichever worked the best) to get rid of earwigs and they made zero difference.

    Your best bet for getting rid of mice is sealing up your house. Short of that, I'm with a lot of the other people above - get a cat. No, they don't kill the mice outright, but they tend to think of mice as the feline equivalent of sup
    • Do what everyone says, get a cat. I used to have a male cat who could get the mice easily but didn't take much interest in it. After he died I got a female cat (spayed), who now even at the age of 16ish can still hunt and kill mice just fine. I don't have a problem with them at all.

  • Who really sells these things? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hired killer ( 665430 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @09:28AM (#5998021)
    I was in pest control from 1974 to 2000. With the wide ranging paranoia about chemicals in pest control and the philosophy of "integrated pest management", you can be sure that Pest Control operators would be clinging to this like a wet t-shirt if there was any beneficial use.

    Just look at where you can get these things. There is huge money in installation of these devices in commercial establishments if the cost would justify the results. Yet, the only ones selling these things are the people who don't have to answer to the client month after month about why it isn't working.

  • I had an older house that had bats in the attic, and installed an ultrasonic repeller with good luck, AC version so I wouldn't have to climb around up there changing batteries. It probably worked because the attic was relatively open and bats are sound sensitive creatures.

    For mice in the basement I used traps and our cat.

  • FTC Says 'No' (Score:5, Informative)

    by WallyHartshorn ( 64268 ) <wally,hartshorn&pobox,com> on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @09:56AM (#5998165) Homepage
    Doing a search on <plug>Skeptic Planet [skepticplanet.com]</plug> for "ultrasonic electronic pest control" found this news item on the National Council Against Health Fraud web site [ncahf.org], which references a Federal Trade Commission news release [ftc.gov]. Quoting:
    FTC hits claims for mosquito repellent device. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has charged Lentek International, Inc, and its principals, Joseph Durek and Lou Lentine, with making false and unsubstantiated claims that (a) their MosquitoContro devices repel mosquitoes from the user and provide an effective alternative to using chemical pesticides in the prevention of the West Nile Virus; (b) their pest-control products drive away mice, rats, bats, cockroaches, and other household pests by means of ultrasound and electromagnetic technology; and (c) their air-cleaning products remove various pollutants from indoor air through ozone and ionization. The company, located in Orlando, Florida, markets air cleaners, pest-control devices, housewares, pet products, personal care products, and flashlights through the Internet, retail stores, catalogs, and individual home distributors. [FTC alleges electronic mosquito repellent claims are false; sellers also lack evidence for ultrasonic pest-control and air cleaning product claims. FTC news release, Aug 28, 2002]
    Hope that helps!
  • Take it into a pet store, and see if the rodents freak. Cruel, but damnit, we need data.
  • I have seen from experience more than once than a house with ferrets running about seems to never have other rodents of any type (or anything other edible moving object not part of the family.)

    I'm convinced that mice, rats, snakes, etc just pack up and leave the moment a ferret is about.


  • Get cats or dogs. Imagine if the brain cavity of your kids were of the same resonance as the ultrasonic transmitter, or of some natural predator of those rodents.

    Better yet rebuild the walls. Being geeky isnt always being smart.

  • these devices require 'line of sight'... (Score:4, Informative)

    by avi33 ( 116048 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @10:51AM (#5998533) Homepage
    ...so they won't work on the critters in the walls.

    The sound frequency is damped right out of existence upon hitting something, so using them in a space with lots of corners, furniture, or sonic shadows will be fruitless. Though, if you knew they were all entering your house through a certain cleared-out area, it might be worth flooding that space with them. Otherwise, I think it will cost a fortune, have limited success, and, based on other another poster's comment, may give you headaches or brain damage.

    Personally, having kids prevented me from putting out too many traps, and chemicals were out of the question.

    First of all, you have to get rid of their entry points, clog up their traffic routes in the walls, and trap the ones that start walking through your living room as a result. I live in an old bungalow, and was surprised to find that behind my baseboards, there was enough room to roll a baseball through (just like in the cartoons, they had set up a little world back there).

    The most effective thing that worked for me (outside of getting a cat) was to pull up the baseboard molding around a few rooms (especially the kitchen), and fill it with 'expanding foam spray.' The mouse superhighway was gone. I caught a couple with traps, but they never came back. It also made my house a bit less drafty. I filled in any space where I thought they may be able to enter the house, either with foam or ultra-fine steel wool (mice won't try to chew through it).

    Low tech, but effective. It cost me about $10 total, compared to $5-$25 for each of the ultrasonic devices.
    • Stuff any holes you find with steel wool before caulking them. If they try to eat through, they don't get very far. After filling all the holes in our 50 year old house, I haven't seen a mouse in over a year. We used to get several every winter.

      Jason
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I'd guess that it was a hawk, owl, fox or bobcat because ferrets play rougher than a cat kills. My ferrets used to stalk the cat for fun, and my dog ( a pomeranian) would hide up on the sofa when the ferrets were playing on the floor playing.
  • Untrasonic Electronic Pest Control is great for me because I am fundamentally opposed to anything trasonic. (It's a religious thing)

  • Don't use the word "war" use "liberate" instead (Score:3, Funny)

    by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @12:25PM (#5999206) Journal

    I have declared war on the pests in my house.

    No, no, you've got it all wrong. Don't say you're declaring war. Say that you're "liberating" them from their miserable existance scurring around in the walls and such. Then you're morally justified in bombing the holy beejesus out of them and they'll be eternally grateful just like the Iraqis.

    Oh wait...

    GMD

  • I have friends who bought a "vacation" home in Death Valley, CA [actually it's just a party house for a bunch of vector ecologists and related people] and it used to be overrun with rodents. Nervous about Hantavirus see here [cdc.gov] [note also has a few good links to help you out on your quest] they tried one out, one of the middle priced ones I believe, and it works great. One of their neighbors doesn't use one and he gets drowned rats and mice in his toilet all the time. As one of the above posts mentions elimin
  • This system won't work unless you have a fan blowing the rats against the electrostatic pl -- oh wait, wrong (similar) 'ask slashdot'. My bad.

  • Our house got infested this winter in a way I've never seen before. The blasted things were everywhere, chewing up food, eating the dog's food, pooping and pissing all over the basement.

    I bought one of the ultrasonic things, but I can't honestly tell you if it seemed to work. By the time I bought it, we were nearly overrun, and they're only supposed to keep them out, not make them leave if they've already gotten comfortable.

    I ended up setting out traps. I started with a few at a time, and ended up ha

    • ever hear of a rat terrier? That's what they were bred for, killing vermin.

      I have a cocker spaniel that constantly hunts opossum. Its amazing to watch him chase, corner, then yank and throw these little beasties in the air and break their backs over his nose. He will grab them at the back of the neck and shake the daylights out of them, then he will fling the bastards high in the air trying to break their necks. He also attacks moles as will the cats. He has yet to figure out how to get the armadillo
  • I for one, and many other people I have had over to my house can hear the ultrasonic pest devices that one of my neighbors has. Although the box says that humans can't hear it, it is very very loud and very very annoying to those who can hear it.

    They are not a better mouse trap.

  • What about hypersonic deterrents. Git yerself a gun... or move out and sign over the deed to the leader of the vermin.

  • Get yourself a self-cleaning, wireless, environmentally safe rodent exterminator.

    Cats. Taking out the trash since the days of the Pharaohs.
  • I have a problem with little nuthatches attacking the side of my house (peck,peck,peck....peck,peck,peck,...etc) anybody try these against birds?

    • Re:Birds?? (Score:3, Informative)

      by osjedi ( 9084 )
      Take all those old Linux cd's you've burned over the past 9 years and hang them from your eves. They spin in the breeze and the bright reflections scare off the birds in short order. The function is very good. The form is perhaps less apealing.
  • Ultrasonic is crap. It's noisy (I can hear it anyway) and pretty useless. I've had great success getting cockroaches out of my house with one of those magnetic resonance devices. They're probably called something different. They work by sending pulses down your power lines that create "bad" magnetic fields that insects (I don't know about rodents) don't like. I haven't noticed any problems with electronics devices either so it mustn't do bad things to the power source.
    • you can't hear the ultrasonic, but most of them turn on and off at line freq, 60Hz and that's what you here, it usualy sounds "clicky". We use a ultrasonic cleaner in the dental lab, and they put out enough power to punch holes through aluminum foil, the foil is almost "see through" in 30 seconds. I can't hear the noise, but if it runs a lot durring the day my ears get that "stuffy" feeling that they get when I'm exposed to to noise audible noise. If I had my choise, I'd leave the room when it's running; ev

  • a better mouse trap (Score:3, Informative)

    by maxume ( 22995 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @07:26PM (#6002736)
    I don't know where this came from, but I got it from my parents... Take a five gallon bucket, and cut it down about halfway, and discard the top. Make a ramp out of a piece of wood, such that a mouse could run up it. Cut two notches on opposite sides of the bucket, so that a wire will can lay accross the width of the bucket. Put a pop or beer can on the wire, and coat it with peanut butter. The last step is to fill the trap with antifreeze. The antifreeze will pickle any rodents that happen to jump on in, reducing the frequency of neccasary cleanings.
    I tried to draw a diagram, but it was aborted by the lameness filter.
    • Well, I'll be damned. That IS a better mousetrap!
    • Be sure to put that bucket of anti-freeze where dogs and cats and such, not to mention children, absolutely cannot get at it. Ethylene Glycol has a sweet taste but it is poisonous.
    • We caught the majority of mice in the bathtub during summer droughts. We would leave a little puddle of water in the bottom of the tub, and the dumb boogers would get stuck in the tub because of the slick surface. We even caught 2 opossum in the same tub at different times. We live in the rural coastal plains of texas.

      DRACO-
  • We were killing 4-6 spiders every day when we first moved into our current house. So we purchased some brand from home depot, and they didn't work at all -- which proved it was all a crock, like I thought it was.

    Then my wife tried another brand (Sunbeam, from Costco). Wow! We went from 4-6 spiders a day to 1 per month. Then after three months, it went up to about 1 per week (Sunbeam says they get used it) and has stayed there ever since. We have them all over (they make little 'clicking' noises, but w

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