What You Need to Know About Rodent Repellent

Rodents are pests that plague apartments, homes, basements, garages, sewage systems and other areas that receive regular human traffic. Rodents reproduce rapidly and are often carrying a number of diseases and leave feces and other elements such as hair every where they go. Most people hate rodents and consider them to be a sign of filth and are constantly looking for ways to prevent them from nesting or reproducing in areas in around building structures or other places occupied by humans.

Certain rodent repellents manipulate the sense of smell to discourage or prevent rodents from inhabiting certain areas. Certain powders, by utilizing fear-inducing scents that raise a rodent's instinctive awareness, such as the scent of a predator's urine - the scent used in marking or claiming a territory - will prevent rodents from nesting and chase them away from current nests once they think it has been claimed by a predator.. These types of approaches are humane and are generally safe for human contact, although they may not last long and may need to be repeated often to keep rodents away.

Another humane approach to prevent rodents from occupying a certain area or to chase them out of a current one is to use an electronic rodent repellent device. These types of electronics use a high decibel signal that rodents cannot tolerate are relatively inexpensive to purchase.

Toxins and other chemicals may be effective to repel rodents, however many have a strong odor that people cannot tolerate, are environmentally dangerous and may even be illegal in some states due to their high potency and potential danger to humans and non-target animals.

One of the best rodent repellent methods is the preventative measure of rodent exclusion. Rodent exclusion is the process of eliminating all openings around a structure that are larger than a certain size - usually ½ inch for rats and larger rodents and less than ¼ inch for smaller rodents such as mice. Rodents can still get into a structure through pipes, open doors and windows, so the structure will need to be maintained for rodent extermination; however prevention may be the most humane method of rodent repellent.

No matter what kind of rodents you need to repel, perhaps the most effective way to repel rodents over the long-term is to experiment with different types of rodent repellents until you select the kind that's right for your home and environment. After all, every situation is different.