IS IT POSSIBLE TO GET RID OF RATS IN A VEGAN FRIENDLY WAY USING PEPPERMINT OR CHILLI?
If you believe that getting rid of rats from your house is going to be as simple as putting Peppermint Oil or Chilli Powder down, you are going to be sorely let down.
I'm not a Vegan, neither are any of the Pest Interceptors team, but we do care about animals more than you would believe. My first problem with the 'Old Wives tale' that rats simply won't cross a barrier of Peppermint Oil or Chilli Powder is that it is said to work because rats hate the smell of both Peppermint Oil and Chilli. In fact, the reason they may avoid both of these substances is because they are irritants. A rats nose and whiskers are by far the rats most important senses.
Imagine you go to use the toilet in the middle of the night in the dark. Your eyes are of very little help in the dark, so you use your other senses to navigate around. For us humans we would use touch of finger tips and even the tiny hairs covering our skin to navigate in the darkness.
Now imagine that the surfaces you are touching are covered in irritating substances like chilli and peppermint. When you return to your bed you are likely to have a stretch and rub your eyes…a few moments later you are in agony as the chemicals burn your eyes and nose.
This is exactly what happens to the rat!!! As soon as the chilli/peppermint covered rat gets back to its nest it will start to groom itself, it will use its front paws to rub its face, paying special attention to its nose and whiskers. These organs on a rat are thousands of times more sensitive than humans!!! If you’ve ever accidentally rubbed chilli in your eyes or nose you can imagine the pain this causes to the rat!!!
Then it gets even worse for the rat family!
A large part of a rats social life is spent grooming, the more it grooms the more it gets the irritants on its sensitive body. The grooming done by the rat is not just to stay clean, it is a big part of establishing a hierarchy in the group. This means that rats that are lower in the pecking order will groom other rats. When they do this they spread more and more of the irritants on themselves!
So is chilli and peppermint really a vegan thing to do to get rid of rats? As I said earlier, we are not a vegan business, and we are not a vegans ourselves, but even to use non-vegans, this method seems to go against vegan principles surely? If it doesn't, please comment or give us a call to put us straight. We want to help, so we are always open to new suggestions or education, so don't be shy, let us know.
But here's the real kicker when using products like these.
Even if the 'irritant barrier' works and the rats don't use that bit of your home anymore (because they now associate chilli and peppermint with excruciating pain), what is to stop them going to other parts of your house? NOTHING.
Here's kicker number 2!
Rats, like most animals classed as pests (we know you don't like us calling rats pests, but you will have to bear with us here), rats have a behaviour called Conditioned Learning. This, plus a few other behavioural traits is what makes them classed as pests, together with all the other 'pest' species.
Conditioned learning is an amazing bit of evolutionary design. It is just one of the things that make rats so amazing!
Conditioned learning goes like this: The rats have a fear or dislike of something, they avoid it, even though the 'thing' they are scared of may never of hurt them. The whole family pack will avoid the problem 'thing'…until one day, a rat will accidentally cross the feared 'thing'. Once this happens the whole family will learn that the 'thing' they were scared of is actually nothing to be scared of! This 'thing' is now of no concern to the entire family of rats. It will do absolutely nothing to get rid of your rat problem.
WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE CHILLI POWDER OR PEPPERMINT OIL WORK?
Like all 'Old Wives Tales' the tale starts somewhere. Interesting techniques and solutions to a problem are, by their very nature, interesting to humans, it is how we learn.
So when the first person 'cured' their rat problem, they were more than happy to tell others about this amazing 'cure'. The 'cure' then gathers momentum until it becomes part of folklore.
In reality, what really happened?
What probably happened is this:
Someone else used poison to kill the rats. This person wasn't probably part of the persons household. It was either a neighbour in an adjoining property (to a rat, a row of houses or a semi-detached house, is just one big house. They do not see the barriers we see. Walls to a rat are nothing it can't go under or through).
So the rat infestation stops. The person using the 'Old Wives Tale' now, understandably and genuinely, thinks it was the potions they used that got rid of the rats. But in reality, it was some unscrupulous person using rat poison somewhere else that the rats were feeding.
P.s. If Chilli powder or Peppermint oil worked to stop rats, don't you think pest controllers would use it? We don't. The reason we don't is because, sadly, it doesn't work.
IS THERE A WAY TO GET RID OF RATS IN A VEGAN WAY?
You'll be happy to hear this no doubt…
YES THERE IS!!! The Pest Interceptors can get rid of rats, forever, for your entire life in your home. Yep, that's correct!
We guarantee, for your life in that property, will be rat free….or YOUR MONEY BACK.
To find out more on our Vegan Rat Free Lifetime Guarantee click here.
Here is a video from our YouTube channel showing you how we use our experience and expertise to solve yet another recurring rat problem.
コメント