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 mouse 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 mouse repellents. Enjoy!
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Testing line-up
This year had a pretty solid #1 as you'll see below. It seems they changed their pouches making it even more effective.
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 to determine what has the highest chance to perform.
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 cabinets, it would have been faster too.
Safety - They typically have all natural ingredients and easy instructions to follow to make sure it's pet and child friendly. There is a little thought that needs to go into it, but nothing that seems too out of the ordinary. Majority also say right on the packaging that they are pet and child friendly.
Smell - This one is often overlooked, but important. The smell was immediately pleasant opening the packages, although overwhelming. I had originally questioned if it would be too overwhelming, but ended up not being an issue.
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.
Natural Ingredients - Majority of these are made with all natural ingredients causing no concern for chemicals or messes.
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!
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Snapshot once all of the products arrived for testing.
Out of stock issues - During peak seasons I've struggled to maintain stock as they typically last 30 days. What I've found to work best is go for the subscriptions or stock up to avoid having to change brands. 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 - The packets and pouches typically last for 30 days which seems short, but makes sense in reality, and something that I haven't minded being on a subscription plan reminding me when to change them.
The "even more robust" testing framework that was simplified earlier on this page!
Safety - These units are relatively safe outside of the electrical component. Usually come in an oval shape large enough to avoid a choking hazard.
Ease of use - By far the easiest to use as all you do is either plug it in or plug it in and push a button.
Cost effective - They are typically really cheap ($20-$50) and don't have ongoing costs outside of electricity and if the units need to be replaced from not working.
Keeps the mice alive - Acting as a deterrent, the rodents are just supposed too move out of the area due to the high-frequency sound waves that humans aren't supposed to be able to hear.
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Effectiveness - I've tested these even outside of this research with little to no luck on 90% of them. There was one that seemed to help a little bit, but even then there's better solutions.
Quality - All of these are made extremely cheap as they only serve one purpose. It's pretty noticeable on the packaging and plastic quality right away.
⭐ Overall Rating ️
My ABSOLUTE favorite! Grandpa Gus's rodent repellent pouches checked all of the boxes luckily making it a pretty easy #1 choice. 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 are safe and smell great without being too overwhelming.
❤️ What I love ️
A lot of the repellents I tried seem to have little to no effect. I remember one tablet having mouse sign literally right next to it a day after setting it down. Not the case here. The smell is very pleasant and the safety for my pets and kids was key.
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Test Area: Bedroom
🙈 What could be better
I've been using these for a while now, and coming up on peak season of 2024, this sounds minor, but is annoying that they run out of stock. Luckily it didn't seem as though any mice moved back in, 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 through peppermint and cinnamon time-release scent. A hassle-free pest control barrier for any home."
☁️ Quality & Packaging
The packaging offered a resealable bag allowing you to keep some fresh as needed. The individual packets themself are easy to use and seem to be high quality as well. I was actually surprised how well scented they were with the bags they came in.
📊 Multiple Options:
Depending on the size space you have or are going to be using these for, they had multiple sizes and volumes of packets.
📏 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
Quality packets 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.
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Testing in the kitchen.
❤️ What I love
Similar thoughts as Grandpa Gus's here, but not as effective in terms of results as Grandpa Gus's at least on 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 Grandpa Gus's here, but not as effective in terms of results as Grandpa Gus's at least on 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. 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
❤️ What I love ️
Clean design and packaging and has the same concept as the others like this. It's probably the easiest to use out of all of them and the theory seems solid. I hope someday they make one of these that actually does work as it's super convenient!
🙈 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.
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. While a lot of the packets are surprisingly similar, for whatever reason Grandpa Gus's performed a lot better - guessing something with ingredients or packaging. Obviously this is one use-case, so do with this information as you please.
I was able to place the packets in the majority of places I needed to. I did this by discovering sign and literally placing the packet right over top of it, or anticipating where they may be traveling. This worked well. The core areas for this were the kitchen and our master bedroom which both locations ended up with no new sign when actively keeping up with them. It's been months since any new sign has appeared and will continue to use them replacing every 30 days. As we head into colder 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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