best rodent repellent

fryup

Whats the best way of keeping rodents (mice & shrews) out of a house?

Don't want to use poison, have used traps but they keep on coming:o

are ultrasonic devices any good??

finnegan101

not really.... they may work in an area that may have a rodent passing by on holidays once a year... poison really is the best way... esp when they take the blocks back to their nest for them all to share...

Half-cocked

I bought quite an expensive €36 ultrasonic thinking you get what you pay for and it was useless. I set up a little IR camera in my shed and it showed a mouse nibbling sunflower seeds right beside the repeller. I bought a €6.99 one in a discount store and it seemed to work.

tricky D

Here's a possible solution... If you can, get some ferrets to have a rummage around the house for an hour or two. Once their scent is established, rodents will clear out. Worked for a friend's rat problem, should work for mice too. The scent shouldn't be a problem for you.

dodderangler

Ferrets are the only lads that'll deter rats
Their scent alone will do grand but to be sure their sh1t will do it ten times better
I know it's disgusting but if it's placed on certain parts outside they won't come near the house
Atb

Kess73

A scent that seems to work on mice, from my own experience, is peppermint.


Peppermint oil in a water burner fills a room/house with the scent of peppermint and it seems to play havok with their sense of smell leading to them heading to locations that don't smell of peppermint.

Would only be a short term solution normally (unless you have a burner going two or three times a week for an hour or two each time), but you could get lucky and it could send them to some other poor sod's house.



Totally agree with the lads that mentioned ferrets. Mice will skedaddle if they think there are ferrets in the area.

SuperInfinity

What about cats and dogs?

In my experience the old-fashioned traps are fine for if you have a small amount of them. We had rats around our house (once one got inside a box of fruit that was on the ground while we were in the same room) and we could hear them going around at night or in the kitchen when we weren't there.

We got a few huge traps and put fresh chicken on them. Next thing you know "snap", "snap", "snap", the rats were getting killed as fast as we could set them up. I'm sure our particular rats were after getting very bold though, maybe more cautious ones wouldn't take the bait so easily so you could try laying the chicken around the traps one night without it set up at all so they grow trusting of the trap. I'm afraid of those traps myself, you could break your finger, maybe even do permanent damage if you get your finger caught, so I use a pliers to help me set them up and turn it upside down to try to get it to catch.

Even the old-fashioned rat traps can be cruel though, if a mouse is caught by the leg or tail and can't get out you might have to actually kill it yourself (or let it hobble off to die in agony). Nasty business. If there are cats around however, you could let them have the mouse/rat, it's what I did when a mouse got caught like that before. It was amazing to see how fast that old cat who pretends to be lame could really run when there was a mouse there trying to get away. :rolleyes:

Run_to_da_hills

This woman should have carried a can of anti ferret repellent spray.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2229171/Florence-Taylor-86-mauled-FERRET-leapt-mobility-scooter-sunk-teeth-leg.html

Celly Smunt

my dog does the trick.

Silverscott

All poison blocks should be secured so they cannot be removed.
This prevents other animals birds etc from eating any dropped on route to a nest.
Bait boxes should be used along with traps for both mice and rats.
Rat traps should be placed along walls etc as this is usually the route they use.