Remote Electronic Pest Monitoring

With conventional pest control, the rodent spring traps must be visually checked on a daily basis:

A mouse spring trap in a locked box

Quick visual inspection of the yellow bar shows the trap is still ready

In ideal circumstances, the electronic system will offer a definite advantage here because there is no need to check a trap until a rodent triggers it off and an alert signal is sent.

In real situations, many things can go wrong:

“False positive” Alert

The electronic system sends an alert, but it is because someone bumped into the trap box or else a broom/mop, during routine cleaning. On sites with many control points, this usually results in a number of additional and costly pest control visits to simply reset the traps.

“False-Negative” Alert

This is the opposite situation: a rodent gets caught in one of the traps, but no signal is sent or received. For instance:

• The battery of an individual traping device depletes and no longer transmit a signal to the control unit. You should budget for costs in replacing the batteries of each device on a regular and also on a random basis.
• A particular device becomes faulty and no longer send alerts. This could be due to a choc, water ingress, or old age.
• Obstruction: Someone places a new object such as a pallet in front of the electronic trap and the main control unit no longer receive alert signals from the trap
• The main control unit (or intermediate relay units) which gather signals from all the traps, is accidentally unplugged and not replugged. Don’t laugh, this happens when cleaners look for sockets to plug-in vacuum cleaners or workers use electric tools. Like any electronic devices, these units are also at risk of becoming faulty over time.
• Loss of internet signal. If the local modem or phone line is down, the system cannot send the alerts. Some systems use GSM units with SIM cards, but again the ready-to-go cards can run out of funds or the signal can drop

The consequences of a False-negative can be much more significant:

• The trap may only catch the rat/mouse by the leg or the tale, and the rodent ends up suffering for days before succumbing, in direct breach of the Animal Health & Welfare Act.
• A decaying dead rodent in a trap for long periods of time may free ectoparasites (fleas, mites), give a bad smell of decomposition, and attract maggots/flies that can initiate a new type of infestation.

Limitations of Real-time Electronic Monitoring

If it all goes well, electronic systems at best only report rodent trap activations, in some specific locations where the traps are present. What about the higher parts of the building:  high walls, rafters, ceilings, etc. where mice love to reside?

What about flying and crawling insects, building proofing, sanitation, housekeeping, which are the fundamentals of today’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) best practices?

Electronic rodent monitoring systems are passive, they wait for a trap activation. The strategy of waiting to catch a rat or mouse in a trap before taking action is a very poor approach to pest management. A pro-active approach is to develop pest management strategies, review them and maintain them regularly in order to prevent pest infestation from occurring in the first place.

To conclude with real-time monitoring abilities

In this broader context, we can see clearly that the electronic systems are very limited compared to traditional pest control: the units are high maintenance, they can (and will) become faulty, they only monitor rodents in a few specific locations, and they fail to address issues with insects, building proofing, hygiene and housekeeping, which are all conducive to pest infestations in the first place.

Regular visual inspections by qualified pest technicians are still the best and only way to prevent pest infestations.