Owner Reviews

How we choose which reviews to publish

We receive several hundred pieces of feedback a year through email, our postal card and third-party retailer reviews. We publish a mix: the easy wins, the tricky gardens that needed a second unit, and the cases where people did not get the result they wanted and had to try something different. That mix matters because a realistic expectation is the single biggest predictor of a customer being happy with a deterrent.

Cat success stories

"We live on a quiet street in Sheffield and at one point we had three neighbourhood cats using our lawn like it was a motorway services. The smell in hot weather was unbearable. Two weeks after the V2 went in by the side gate, we were down to one visitor. By week four – nothing. My husband mowed the lawn yesterday without having to scoop anything first, which is a first for this house."

— Helen W., Sheffield. Cat repeller V2, Setting 3.

"I have two cats of my own and was worried the repeller would upset them. I put it on the far end of the garden, pointing away from their favourite sunspot, and pointed at the gap in the hedge where the ginger tom comes in from next door. My cats haven't reacted at all. The ginger tom stopped coming in after about ten days."

— Bea M., Oxford. Solar repeller.

Fox turnaround

"We have an urban fox that basically treated our garden like a second home for the last two winters – digging the lawn, tipping the compost bin, leaving scent marks on the decking. Nothing worked. Then we tried the fox setting in night mode and added a Jet Spray at the fence. Three weeks in, the fox changed its route. Now it trots past along the pavement, which we're honestly pleased to see."

— David R., Croydon. Fox deterrent + Jet Spray.

Solar stake for low-maintenance gardens

"I wanted something I could set up once in April and forget. I got the solar stake in the front flower bed where the neighbour's cats had been treating it as a toilet. It's now been in continuous operation for 11 months. I wipe the panel every few months and that's it. Cats went from a daily visit to zero within about a fortnight."

— Anita K., Bath. Solar repeller.

Jet Spray converts

"I'll be honest, I bought the Jet Spray partly because I wanted to see it work. The pond had been regularly hit by a grey heron and I was losing fish. First burst happened on day one, and the heron hasn't been back since. The whole family crowded round the kitchen window for about an hour afterwards watching in case it came back. It didn't."

— Tom L., Canterbury. Jet Spray on koi pond.

Indoor rodent results

"We were about to call the exterminator when I read about the whole-house repeller. I plugged one into the kitchen and one in the loft, and followed the advice on blocking gaps under the sink. The scratching stopped after about two weeks. We've left them plugged in permanently and haven't had a repeat now for nearly a year."

— Gareth P., Cardiff. Two whole-house repellers.

Reviews where we had to step in

Not every review is a five-star story. A handful of each month's emails report that the unit "isn't working". When that happens, we reply with a short checklist – the siting rules on the instructions page – and ask for a photo of the installation. In roughly 80% of those cases, a small change in position fixes the problem completely. A recent example:

"I emailed to say mine wasn't working. The team replied within a few hours and spotted in my photo that I'd mounted it pointing at a brick wall which apparently confuses the sensor. I moved it 90° to face the lawn and a week later the cats had gone. Great after-sales service."

— Rachel H., Newcastle. Cat repeller V2.

The lesson from cases like this is simple: nine times out of ten, "doesn't work" is a placement issue rather than a defective unit. A two-minute check-in almost always resolves it without a return.

Independent ratings

We don't run the aggregate ratings ourselves, but for reference: on the three biggest British retail sites where PestBye products are sold, the V2 cat repeller averages 4.5 stars, the solar repeller 4.4, the Jet Spray 4.7 and the whole-house rodent unit 4.3 across several thousand combined reviews. Those aren't perfect numbers, and we don't pretend they are – but they are consistent with what we hear from our own customers.

Send us your story

If you've had a positive result – or if something's not working yet – we'd love to hear from you at hello@thepestbye.co.uk. We genuinely read every email, and the best advice we can give new customers almost always comes from patterns we spot across real gardens, not from a laboratory. Your story could be the one that helps the next gardener work out whether to start with a solar stake, a Jet Spray or both.

Summary

The thread running through every review on this page is the same: with the right product for the right animal, placed in the right spot and given two to four weeks of patience, a long-running pest problem stops being a problem. The technology is proven, the approach is humane, and the garden belongs to the gardener again.