In the winter months, we are invaded with spiders. I am sure part of the problem is bringing in the firewood with the little creepy creatures hidden in the wood and the other part is their hunt for a warm place to be other than the icy cold outside.

Searching for a way to rid of these 8 legged creepy crawlies that come in all shapes and colors, I found there was only bug spray, glue traps, and electronic pest repellers.

What It is and What It is Suppose to Do

The First Alert Plug-In Electronic Pest Repeller, Model FA258 states on the package that it is for use “against mice, rats, spiders, and ants”. I decided to get the package and give it a try since there would be no poisons to worry about with the cats and dogs and no glue traps.

The package came with 5 of these. They are small and designed to just plug into any standard outlet. Each one offers a night-light that can be turned on or off. Each one has a swivel speaker that adjusts by pushing on the top or bottom of the speaker. There is a red indicator light on the front that will pulse showing you that the unit is functioning properly.

The First Alert Plug-In Electronic Pest Repeller is an ultrasonic unit meaning its sound waves are at a frequency too high to be heard by the human ear. First Alert’s units operate above 27,000 Hz. Ultrasonic generally refers to frequencies above 20,000 Hz and the human ear detects below this. Cats and dogs have more sensitive hearing and are able to detect ultrasonic frequencies up to 27,000 Hz. Mice, rats, guinea pigs, ferrets and chinchillas rodents are able to detect frequencies above 27,000 Hz, therefore these units cannot be used if you have any of these for pets. They are harmless to fish, birds, and plants.

Ultrasounds are waves and do not go through any walls, floors, ceilings, or doors. They also cannot pass through a sofa or table. This is where you become very limited for this to work.

Our Placement

Our largest problem was downstairs in our daylight basement where our daughter has her territory. I plugged one in her bathroom. I only had a choice of one spot to place it since there is only one electrical outlet next to the bathroom sink. I then placed two in her bedroom but electrical plugs are close to the floor and I could already picture this sound just bouncing a few feet into her bed. I also placed two in her living area. This was another tough area with a sofa, desk, and big screen TV. Both places that I found to have electrical plugs still did not have a clear line of sight. Lastly, our son’s bedroom is also downstairs so I plugged one in there also.

Waiting for Results

After waiting 3 weeks for results and trying different levels of sound, we discovered instead of the spiders leaving, they actually were coming closer. Two were within a few feet of the unit. So in our case, they were being attracted and not distracted or else had become immune quickly to the generated sound.

After seeing that we were not achieving the desired results, I took them back to the store. I am back to researching for an alternative while constantly squishing these little gross bugs.

The warranty for these are 2 years.











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