Why building a better rat trap is not the best way to manage rodents?
RodeXit proofing strips are an effective alternative to trapping or baiting rodents
The pest management industry’s holy grail is the ‘better rat trap’ that inventors have persevered over for millennia. Surprisingly, even with the arrival of the most advanced rodent traps, the older types do not become redundant. As a result, our industry can choose from hundreds of rodent traps that work with varying success depending on the situation.
Baiting rodents with food baits or toxic ones has been another favored pest management industry practice, with the availability of commercial products about a century old. With the world facing a burgeoning rodent population, the old trapping and baiting methods continue to be popular and efficacious. However, the intrepid PMPs have asked whether they can’t do something different and come out with answers to aid their peers. One answer that some inventors have come up with against rodents is a product to prevent rodents. Unfortunately, globally, there are few rodent proofing brands, and one of them is Europe’s RodeXit which is now also popular in North America.
The Danish RodeXit rodent proofing strip is one answer to rodent entry into structures. It is a Santoprene proofing strip containing ten steel wires that deter rodents from chewing through it like most rodent proofing materials that PMPs commonly use.
Santoprene is a soft and versatile thermoplastic vulcanizate (TPV) in the thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) family.
As RodeXit is versatile, you PMPs can use it to seal gaps below doors or shutters and vertical (or astragal) gaps between glass doors.
The proof of RodeXit’s efficacy is the successful result of the Danish Technological Institute’s ‘rat attack test’ in which rats could not damage or push up the RodeXit test strip for a week.
RodeXit is a good option for protection against mice, rats, and bandicoots, the last being common Asian rodent pests. Proofing gaps with RodeXit also helps prevent the entry of other pests, an incidental benefit. As RodeXit is a seal, it also helps contain heat or cool air loss and is effective insulation to maintain indoor temperature and optimize heating and cooling costs.
RodeXit is easy to handle and install with tin snips and Stanley knives. The screw markings on the product guide the user to fix it fast and complete the process in just ten minutes in most cases. Quick installation is a key RodeXit feature, and the product lasts for ten years from installation.
RodeXit is suitable for closing gaps up to 50 mm. for which a PMP would use two overlapping strips each of 35 mm. width. The two overlapping layers of RodeXit provide a higher degree of rodent protection. In addition, RodeXit is versatile in that a PMP can fix on wooden or metal strips (such as carpet trims) to maintain aesthetics while rodent-proofing a gap.
The manufacturer supplies RodeXit in 25 m. lengths in flat boxes, which are easy to carry even in a backpack with the minimal tools you need to fix it. Users don’t even need to take the product rollout of the box but access it through a notch at one corner to cut out the length they need. Unlike some other rodent proofing materials that come in standard length, PMPs can use any length of the RodeXit strip and have no trimming wastage.
PMPs are better off preventing rodent entry into your home or business as the consequences of rodent presence include contamination, damage, bad odor, and spread of diseases. An easier option for trapping or baiting rodents is presenting their entry using RodeXit proofing strips.
Last week, India became only the ninth country where the RodeXit rodent proofing strip is available for rodent proofing when Giridhar Pai Associates imported its first consignment of the product from Denmark.
The RodeXit All-In-One (AIO) seal was available only in the USA, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Moldova.
India is also one of the first countries where RodeXit’s AIO seal is available. Its manufacturer introduced this latest variant early in 2022 to follow the first two product versions of the wave and straight proofing strips.
With the global availability of RodeXit AIO, PMPs everywhere now have a simple and easy-to-use rodent proofing material to prevent rodent entry into their facilities. Through careful market analysis and planning, RodeXit’s manufacturer has ensured that the product pricing is highly affordable and leads to widespread global product adoption.
The RodeXit vision and mission statement below help you understand their motivation in making their product.
Vision: Our vision is to minimize the colossal losses suffered by individuals, enterprises, and society due to rodent intrusion in buildings and public facilities.
Mission: Our mission is to develop, produce and sell effective and fast, and easy to mount rodent proofing devices and thereby to revolutionize the art of rodent proofing.
Bjørn von Ryberg and Claus Frimand invented and developed the RodeXit seals in Denmark.
The RodeXit Name and Logo: “RodeXit” is a contraction of the two words “rodent” and “exit.” The underscore line in the logo is the cross-section of the RodeXit rodent proofing strip - showing the ten solid stainless-steel wires as ten white dots. The green color in the logo symbolizes that the proofing strip is an eco-friendly and non-toxic solution for rodents.
PMPs facing market saturation and sagging revenues must look for newer revenue streams like rodent proofing, an untapped opportunity with enormous potential. We have highlighted in older issues how rodent trapping and baiting have limited effectiveness, and PMPs need to use those methods with proofing and monitoring.
My experience with rodent management contracts is that with neither customer nor PMP able to predict the rodent population at the start or as time progresses, the effort to contain rodents becomes increasingly expensive. Even after extensive trapping and baiting, porous structures with easy rodent access continue to have rodent incursion and damage. In addition, a customer losing property and merchandise daily to rodent gnawing will readily spend on rodent proofing with RodeXit type proofing strips.