But I am asking about the rodents type not the liberal kind.
When I was having the problem (back in the fall when the weather first started getting cold here) I visited dozen of websites, and people post what works/doesn't (that where I learned of bobcat pee)...but there was one funny story (had been in the news) on many sites. A man found a nest in his yard (he had been battling mice for years). He douses the nest w/lighter fluid, tosses a match and enflamed (literally and figuratively) mice run from the nest...and follow their usual route into HIS home (into crawl spaces, walls) so by the time the FD arrived the house was gone. But on the upside...NO MORE MICE :)
I lived on the Pacific coast. I used one of these, and the next morning there was a submarine in my front yard.
I tried them once, when we had liberal house guests, but they didn’t seem to notice.
Don’t poison them. They crawl into your house (where you can’t find them) and die. They you have the smell.
Use traps where your dogs can’t reach and seal up the entrances to your crawl spaces and such with screening.
I have used the electic traps for mice and they work really well! No messy bodies or traps to touch. No poison for the pets. Just cute, *dead*, mice, dumped in the woods.
Yes, they are expensive, but they are reusable forever.
Also, I know that mothballs thrown under a porch will keep out wild critters like skunks and possum. I don’t know if it works with rats or not.
We got one that wasn’t sonar — but made like a bag crumpling/popping kind of sound. No problems since we started using it. *shrug*
Granted I also put down traps, poison, glue boards *laugh*
I don’t like rodents. Rats . . . gah. We caught one in the trap — well, killed one. I didn’t look. Hubby dealt with it.
No more activity though since putting in the noise maker thing.
I’ve had Baxter about a year now, he’s even taught the squirrels to stay in the trees (no more digging up lily bulbs). He’s taken care of the rodent population, even the moles that were plowing up the yard.
To make it even better - he’s a good people cat, an asset indoors as well.
I’d recommend against the ultrasonic rat repeller things because although they use sound frequencies that are undetectable to the adults that develop them, kids, teenagers, and other animals can hear them, so they might drive your dogs a bit crazy too.