Pest Free Australia make a product that they claim repels rodents and pests, in particular rats, mice, and cockroaches. Knowing a little bit about insecticides, I made enquiries about the product’s effectiveness. In short, I found their explanation rather inadequate.
I received an abstract that did nothing more than say that in a scientific study it was shown that this product changed the eating habits of mice. That was it. No mention of it actually being a repellant, and certainly no mention of cockroaches.
This came as no surprise to me, as cockroaches and rodents are biologically very different: cockroaches are insects, and rodents are mammals – just like us.
There’s a reason the term “lab rat” exists, and why mice and rats are used in laboratory studies for nutrition and pharmaceuticals and so on: their biology is rather similar to humans, and certainly far more similar than an insect.
So I would not buy this product.
But what of all the testimonials on their website? Well, as Abraham Lincoln once said, don’t believe everything you read on the internet…