I was talking to my next-door neighbour last weekend, and she said how much she was enjoying the ongoing saga of my continuing battles with the mice. When she’d stopped laughing, she sympathised, and said that they had similar problems with mice in the attic. She asked whether I’d tried ultrasonic rodent repellers, as they were using one with some success.
I remember that several years ago, Christopher did discuss ultrasonic devices with Tim, our regular rodent-killer, and he was somewhat dismissive. Apparently, the mice get habituated to the sound, so they only work in the short term. Also, my neighbours are using a mains-powered ultrasonic repeller, and I don’t have sockets conveniently placed in my loft. However, I’m getting desperate enough to want to try something else, as there’s tons of poisoned bait up in the loft, and yet I’m still hearing scrabbling sounds every night at 11o’clock pretty much on the dot, and again between 3am and 4am. I looked on-line, and found some reasonably-priced battery-operated ultrasonic rodent repellers, so ordered a couple.
They arrived during the week, so I thought I’d better try to deploy them this weekend. I don’t like going up into the loft – it’s cramped and claustrophobic, smells of mice, and isn’t boarded, so you have to be really careful to only step on the rafters, otherwise you could easily put a foot through the ceiling. Since I know my mother is reading this, I’d better say that I did take the precaution of putting my mobile phone in my pocket along with the torch, and unlocking the back door so that rescuers could get in if disaster struck and I needed to call for help – though whether I’d get a phone signal up there is another question!
It was tricky to find somewhere to put the devices. I didn’t want to put them right next to the bait, as if the critters do get in and hang around, I want them to take the bait not get frightened away from it. But there also is the issue that access around my loft is very difficult – it’s in three separate bits, and I’m not prepared to crawl between them. And it’s very cluttered, with old Victorian water tanks, and loads of stuff that I think Chris must have put up there when we moved in – and the ultrasonics work less well in a cluttered environment. I finally came to a compromise and put the devices in place. I shall now wait and see whether there is any discernible effect.
