Crittex puts out a tight, irregular ultrasonic pattern in the band where mice hear best — and the band you, your dog, and your cat all miss. Three things have to be right for it to work: frequency, pulse, loudness. We got all three.
USB-C in the back. Three hours to full. 28 days of runtime per charge.
Wherever you've heard them. Counter, pantry, basement, garage floor.
One button. LED goes green. The pulse starts. You won't hear a thing.
Mice hear sharply between roughly 1 kHz and 90 kHz. Crittex outputs in a tight 22–55 kHz window — right where their auditory threshold is most sensitive, and well above where you, your dog, or your cat are listening.
22–55 kHz — sits in the most sensitive range of a mouse's hearing while skipping cleanly past human, dog, and cat hearing.
A steady tone is something mice habituate to in days. Crittex varies pulse width and interval so they can't tune it out.
92 dB SPL at 1 m. Loud enough that mice can't ignore it. Quiet enough that pets do.
Across our 40-household test panel, half of homes reported no further mouse activity by the ninth day. Heavy infestations took up to three weeks.
Crittex sits above the comfort range for cats and dogs and uses a low enough SPL that even sensitive pets don't react. Small mammal pets and reptiles should sleep in a different room.
Shop Crittex — $69| Dogs | Ignore it entirely. No flinch, no whine. |
| Cats | Sleep next to it. No tail flicks, no ear pricks. |
| Small mammals | Hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs — keep in another room. |
| Birds | Mostly unaffected. Keep cage 6 ft away to be safe. |
| Reptiles | Not affected. Their hearing is below the band. |
| Crittex | Snap traps | Sprays | Exterminator | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kills nothing | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Pet-safe | ✓ | — | — | — |
| No clean-up | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| One-time cost | $69 | $8 ongoing | $15 ongoing | $200+ |
| Works on shy mice | ✓ | — | — | ✓ |
Mice rely on ultrasonic vocalization to communicate and on hearing to detect predators. A continuous unfamiliar ultrasonic signal makes a space feel acutely dangerous — they leave to find a quieter den. It's a behavior tool, not a weapon.
Habituation requires a predictable stimulus. Crittex modulates pulse width, frequency sweep, and inter-pulse interval randomly, so the auditory system can't filter it out the way it filters out a steady tone.
Dogs hear up to roughly 45 kHz. Most of Crittex's energy is above that — and the irregular pulse pattern combined with the low SPL means even sensitive dogs don't flinch. Our test panel includes 30+ households with dogs; none reported pet distress.
Three things: tight frequency tuning per species (most plug-ins shotgun a broad band), irregular pulse modulation (most plug-ins emit a constant tone), and SPL tuned high enough to work but low enough not to harass pets.
No. Ultrasound is highly directional and attenuates quickly through any solid material. Plan one Crittex per room you want covered.
One button. Cordless. Pet-safe. Backed by 30 days of money-back so you can run it in your own house before deciding.