The Big Cheese Mouse & Rat Repeller > Reviews (1)

We have rats in our garage! We know this because dad stores a lot of our veggies in there which he grows on his allotment (potatoes, leeks, carrots etc) and more often than not when mum sends him out to bring in something she needs for the tea, he’ll moan that “the bloody rats are at it again”, i.e. nibbling away at his sacks and into his prized vegetables.

He’s been trying to catch the little blighters for absolutely ages by laying traps with tempting food such as cheese (which they don’t seem to care for much) and chocolate (which they love!), especially Snickers Bars. Lately though, they don’t seem to be tempted much and dad’s getting more and more angry that he can’t catch them. I’ve seen them scurrying around the garage floor when I’ve gone in there to get stuff out of our freezer. I actually don’t mind rats (or mice) but I do hate it when they nibble away at our stuff and they do cause a lot of damage to other things dad has stored away in the garage, such as wires, rope and my wet suit (which was really expensive, and now I have to hang it from the rafters in the ceiling).

It was nan to the rescue again though. She bought dad (second-hand, of course) a Big Cheese Mouse and Rat Repeller from our local Help the Aged second-hand shop. Nan got this for £3.00 but I have checked out the RRP is actually £7.99. They sell these in B&Q for £8.25 and Amazon sell them for £7.99 also. Nan bought this because mum always says she feels bad that the rats end up dead and she refuses to take them out of their traps and leaves them for dad to pick up when he gets back from work. Nan thought that this might be a more humane way to deal with the pesky little rodents as the appliance boasts that it is “poison-free” and works be emitting a powerful 100db ultrasonic frequency which is supposedly inaudible to humans and large animals (but not to other little rodents such as hamsters, gerbils etc).

Dad was keen to give it a go and took it with him to the loo to read the instructions (his favourite reading-room). Half an hour later he emerged and said he was off to plug it in in the garage. The unit is supposed to ‘detect, repel and protect’ an area of up to 400sq feet as long as there are no obstructions in the way (i.e. other furniture, curtains etc) and it sounded like it might just work as the manufacturer states it comes with a two year guarantee. It can be used in any room, not just a garage, including living room, bedrooms and even a kitchen area where food is prepared as it contains no harmful toxins or poisons.

Dad plugged it into the socket in our garage, closed the door and said he’d take a peek the following morning before he left for work. The idea is that the rats and mice are not killed by the unit but just that they find the noise so horrible that they run off to get away from the sound. Dad actually forgot to check the next few days as he became quite ill with flu and none of us had ventured into the garage for about five days. On the fifth day we remembered the unit and went to have a look.

Sadly, there was still evidence of rats around dad’s sacks of spuds (including droppings) along with the usual teeth and bite marks as the rats had feasted on dad’s vegetables. Dad and me stood there for a little while just looking about and one of them boldly walked past our feet (not running with his hands across his ears as we’d imagined), completely oblivious to any ‘powerful high frequency’ coming from the unit. The rat just wasn’t fazed at all and it was obvious it wasn’t going to work.

Dad has since gone back to laying traps and he’s caught a few more over the last few weeks – he’s using Mars Bars and Double Deckers now, just to give them a bit of variation. We’ve chucked the Big Cheese Unit in the bin, as it was a complete waste of money and dad is now storing his veg in our conservatory for the time being. Not a great product all in all and certainly not worth the money!!