Retrieving dead or injured vermin from traps 鈥� surely one of the most unsavoury of housekeeping tasks 鈥� is set for a high-tech makeover.
Instead of someone having to make regular check of traps to see they if contain a dead rat or mouse, the novel trap sends out a text message to summon a pest controller. By ensuring the trap is emptied as soon as the animal is caught, it can be reset quickly, so ensuring more vermin are caught.
The idea comes from UK pest control firm Rentokil, which commissioned Wyless of London and Radio-Tech of Epping, Essex, to build the trap.
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Nigel Binns, Rentokil鈥檚 chief biologist, wanted a trap that would kill only target animals, and do so humanely. It would then alert a pest controller that the trap needed attention. Inside its white plastic enclosure, a pressure pad senses the weight of an animal鈥檚 paw, and closes the door if the footfall matches the weight of a rat or mouse. Squirrels or small rabbits are spared, he says. Gas released from a carbon dioxide capsule then kills the vermin humanely.
Once the capsule has been set off, a built-in cellphone unit 鈥� in effect a mobile minus its microphone, display and speaker 鈥� sends a text to the nearest pest controller.
Binns reckons computer data centres will be among the major users of the new system, as vermin often chew the warm cables running under the floors. 鈥淭he rats have caused massive network failures in such places,鈥� Binns says. 鈥淐onstant monitoring will lessen the chance of that happening.鈥�
