Hi, I’m Ben!
I'm a proud father to my beautiful daughter, and work as an exterminator here in southern Wisconsin. Each year I test and rank top household pest repellents. Enjoy!
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I'm a proud father to my beautiful daughter, and work as an exterminator here in southern Wisconsin. Each year I test and rank top household pest repellents. Enjoy!
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Testing line-up
This year had a pretty solid #1 as you'll see below. I haven't seen these in the past to test so assuming they are new this year - seriously, incredible.
Getting the right product that worked at a consistent rate proved to be difficult as many of the products had little to no effect. Having a child and pets at home, safety quickly become important in my rankings. To be honest, it's extremely challenging and overwhelming in such an urgent time where you just want them gone. Most of these products take time to really see results making the testing a drawn out process.
This in-depth guide can be used to take my learnings and apply them. Yes, this is more than the average homeowner is willing to go through, but with my background, I had fun with it! I also created this comparison chart that summarizes all of my research. I update this post whenever there's a new product to test to ensure that all of the information below is recent and accurate.
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My key components and checklist ((Quality + Effectiveness + Cost + Safety + Smell) / 5).
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Methodical testing using my test criteria and ranking formula.
I also needed to test the effectiveness of each repellent to see if it worked for removing the mice. Finding the right test environment was the hardest part - here’s how I did it:
Test space: Basement (This was one of the three controlled test area's)
One of the main things I wanted to figure out is what style of repellent worked best. Throughout the process there were general themes that formed with similar outcomes depending on what style repellent it was. There's a few things I prioritized in this research:
To make a good decision and ensure I was doing what was best for my home, I used my research to create an extensive pro's and con's list for each type of repellent. Shares below:
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I started with a bunch of overall research from websites, blogs, and large retailers (a few tested products not pictured).
Noticed results in the first week - It was relatively immediate results having tested these pretty heavy in the kitchen (where the most sign was). We went from fresh sign to minimal new sign. I think if I would have expanded to more outlts, it would have been faster too.
Safety - After researching for days, the electronic solutions were the easiest to use, and 100% child and pet friendly. There is a little thought that needs to go into how many rooms to put these into, but nothing that seems too out of the ordinary. While the pouches also claim to be pet and kid friendly, they also all include cautions to keep out of reach of pets and children, which was contradicting to me.
Smell - This one is often overlooked, but important. Electronic devices had no smell. I had mixed feelings between other pouch solutions, some overwhelming, some bad, and one smelling like an air freshener. I like that the electronic device did not have any smell.
Less Expensive - The cost is extremely reasonable when you think about how much some of these products are. Pest control I was quoted over $2,100 including an ongoing fee. I'll focus on per unit cost in relation to overall coverage vs total cost as the volume was different on each one.
The mouse stays alive - These are made to deter mice and rats (rodents) vs kill. This avoids any mess and having a rodent rot in a wall for example. If you haven't smelt this before, consider yourself lucky!
Snapshot once most of the products arrived for testing.
Out of stock issues - During peak seasons I've struggled to get my hands on more for friends, family, and clients. What I've found to work best is to stock up when available to avoid this. I'm sure this will improve over time, but something to watch out for.
Outside usage - While these work great indoors and places like garages and sheds, they don't hold up long in the exposed elements of nature (rain, wind, sun etc...).
Replacement - While these are made well, and all of mine are still working, including the one in my toolshed that is exposed to hot summers and cold winters, it may add small cost if these need to be replaced.
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The "even more robust" testing framework
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⭐ Overall Rating ️
My ABSOLUTE favorite this year! The RodentRX ultrasonic repeller checked all of the boxes luckily making it a pretty easy #1 choice. To my knowledge, it's new this year. It completely cleared the area in the test phase, and then moving to the entire house it stopped the sign and sounds pointing at the mice moving out which was my main goal. They also the safest and easiest to use.
❤️ What I love ️
A lot of the repellents I tried seem to have little to no effect. I remember some of the pouches having mouse sign literally right next to it a day after setting it down. Not the case here. There were no droppings anywhere near the device, and the safety for my pets and kids was key.
Test Area: Bedroom
🙈 What could be better
I've been using these for a while now, and coming up on peak season of 2025, this sounds minor, but is annoying that they run out of stock. Originally I only ordered 3 to test them out and when I later returned to purchase more they were temporarily out of stock, but just something to keep an eye out as they seem to have problems keeping up with demand. The other thing is usage outside. While not a concern for me, you may be stuck with getting a different solution for that.
📄 Description
"Stop mice from invading your home, garage, car, truck or RV with a simple and easy plug and play solution. A hassle-free pest control barrier for any home."
☁️ Quality & Packaging
The packaging was simple and clean, and the device itself seemed to be high quality as well. I was actually surprised how well put together this felt.
📊 Multiple Options:
Depending on the size space you have or are going to be using these for, they had multiple quantities to purchase, and price discounts for ordering more.
📏 Instruction for use:
Very easy to follow instructions and usage recommendations. They also go over a lot more of the benefits and research they have done on their end. Pretty cool to see it live in action.
⭐ Overall Rating
These mouse repellent pouches are a decent alternative, however, I found that needing more, not being as child and pet friendly, and having to replace every 30 days were some minor inconviniences that has me preferring the electronic device. I do think these can see similar results to our top pick, and I may even test them more in the future. All natural ingredients make for a huge bonus as well.
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Testing in the kitchen.
❤️ What I love
While Easy to use, these did not seem as effective as the RodentRX in terms of results as in the time I spent testing them. The overall quality and design seems to be solid. I would recommend using this as a replacement if out of stock issues are causing problems.
🙈 What could be better
Not a ton of advantage of going this route in my opinion. Based on the testing and results I mapped, there's other packet / pouch options to help solve your mouse or rat problems.
⭐ Overall Rating
Another option if you're struggling to get pouches to work, or dealing with out of stock issues. While I didn't have as much luck with this one, it may work for others. The pouches themselves are very nice, but very similar to Earthkind and seem to almost be the exact same.
❤️ What I love ️
Clean design and packaging and has the same pouch concept as the others which I like the most. The ingredients are also all natural. They don't specifically call out pet and child friendly like the other ones do.
🙈 What could be better
They don't specifically call out being pet and child friendly which was a concern for me and my use-case situation. The design could be altered to be it's own product vs very similar to the others.
⭐ Overall Rating
Quality tablets that may just need to be spread out closer together to which would probably leave better results. I do think these can see similar results to our top pick, and I may even test them more in the future. All natural ingredients make for a huge bonus as well.
❤️ What I love
Similar thoughts as other pouches, but not as effective in terms of results as RodentRX. The overall quality and design seems to be solid. I would recommend using this as a replacement if out of stock issues are causing problems. Price is also very cheap per unit.
🙈 What could be better
Not a ton of advantage of going this route in my opinion. You need to use a lot more of them, and they are messy. Based on the testing and results I mapped, there's other packet / pouch options to help solve your mouse or rat problems.
⭐ Overall Rating
Another option if you're struggling to get pouches to work, or dealing with out of stock issues. While I didn't have as much luck with this one, it may work for others. The unit is nice, but you can tell right away it is made cheap and the results were minimal. There was also a humming sound that was noticable when the house was quiet.
❤️ What I love ️
It's very easy to use, and is suppposed to work in similar ways to RodentRX. Not sure why (maybe mine was defective), but this did not seem to work. I hope someday they make one of these that actually does work, as the design caught my eye.
🙈 What could be better
Can be loud, and bulky. Whereas the RodentRX plugs into an outlet and fits on a wall, this device needs batteries and has to sit in the middle of a room for max efficiency, which is not convinient. The design could be altered to be it's own product vs very similar to the others.
Considering all of my important factors for mouse repellents (listed above), I created this comparison chart. Everything here can be found on Amazon or the respective products website.
To recap, I guess I was expecting a little better results across the board vs just a couple of products working. The main area I wanted to focus on was actually solving my mouse and rat problem in the house. After that it was safety for my pets and kid along with the smell. For the reasons above, RodentRX outperformed in terms of easy and repelling than the other options above... a lot better. Obviously this is one use-case, so do with this information as you please.
I was able to place the devices in rooms that I needed to without being worried about my dog or kids playing with it (like the pouches). The core areas for this were the kitchen and our master bedroom which both locations ended up with no new sign when actively keeping this plugged in (can be plugged in indefinately). It's been months since any new sign has appeared and will continue to use the RodentRX through the season. As we head into warmer temperatures, I'll keep testing and update here if anything else is discovered.
I also enjoy seeing what other products come to market, so check back to see if this changes. If you know of a product not tested here that's worked for you, reach out to let me know!
Being a homeowner is fun, but I know the feeling all too well the first time you find out you have unwanted visitors. Good luck to you, I hope I was able to help!
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