Bottom line? They just don't work.
For most people, seeing ants, cockroaches, spiders, centipedes, mice, bed bugs, and other pests roaming around the house happily is a major obstacle. We will do anything to pack these intruders. I have read a story about a person who detonated so many bug bombs in her trailer that the smoke ignited and blew it up. In terminology, this is what is called dumping the baby and bath water together.
Therefore, blowing up your house is not an option. What else can you do? Well, if you visit your local home center or hardware store, you will find there is no shortage of sprays, traps, poisons, stickers, rubber sheets, and other insect repellent devices. You can hire professional pest control personnel to inspect and dispose of the house regularly (I use Arnold Schwarzenegger because I know he will come back.). These methods proved to be effective. However, what does not work is a futuristic device that looks cool and high-tech. You may have already bought one-an ultrasonic insect repellent.
Ultrasonic insect repellents are available in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and prices, and are designed to plug into the power outlet of any room you have problems. They "repel" pests by emitting high-frequency sound waves that are too high for humans to hear, which can make the pests irritable (pun intended), convulsive, irritable and easy to drink fatal doses of sweet moscato.
Several questions came to mind immediately. Although ants, spiders, bed bugs, etc. can sense vibrations, they do not have ears. In addition, unlike ultra-low frequency sounds (think of baby magnet vehicles with boom boxes that can penetrate concrete and smash steel plates within 900 yards), high frequency sound waves travel a short distance and can be absorbed by almost anything -Carpets, curtains, towels, lounge chairs, pillows, boxes and piles of dirty underwear. Put a piece of cardboard between the repellent and the target, and the target will not notice anything. Ultrasound becomes very useless.
Full disclosure-I once bought a pair of these to drive squirrels out of my attic. They opened a shop in the corner, so I pointed the insect repellent directly at an area about six feet away, and cut off the juice. To no avail. Either they detected the sound and didn't care, or they didn't hear it at all. I finally had to go retro and capture varmints. That works.
The reason for this article is a post I saw on social media this week about the top 10 ultrasonic insect repellents-all the worldly truths are here. The author apparently has a master's degree in entomology and physics, and in order to determine her ranking, she did shockingly in-depth research. She looked for "ultrasonic insect repellents" on Amazon.com and calculated the number of stars for each device and how many people rated it. The device with the most stars and ratings wins. This strengthened my confidence because I know that every positive review on Amazon is legal.
Just for fun, I clicked on one of the most highly rated insect repellents I found there, the Bocianelli ultrasonic insect repellent, which has 5 stars and 323 ratings. Wow, a pack of six is only $29.99! However, the product description sounds suspicious. E.g:
Loyal readers, don't be attracted like me. There are many effective ways to eliminate disgusting mistakes. Your feet. Fly swatter. Boric acid. Ant trap. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"Say grumpy, don't let the leaves lie"
"Pest carnivorous plant? No way!"