Nothing comes between a rodent and its repellant

FROM COURT DOCUMENTS

A photo of a snoozing mouse was the downfall of a company seeking to dismiss a case charging that its rodent-repellent gadget was ineffective.

According to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New York in 2017, the Ultrasonic Pest Repellers, which were sold and marketed by New York-based BJJ LLC, which does business as Bell +Howell and Van Hauser LLC, allegedly used “ultrasonic sound waves” to repel rodents and “drive pests out,” yet were “ineffective and useless.”

U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III was persuaded to the plaintiffs’ point of view by photos they submitted that not only showed mice gathering around the device, but one taking a nap resting on top of it.

“As the photographs show, mice can apparently relax comfortably under a Repellers and even appear to be so drawn in by its siren song that one would scale a wall just to snooze on it,” said the judge in his ruling earlier this month refusing BHH’s motion to dismiss the putative class action suit.