Rats will never be a problem if you use 1 kitchen item that makes your home a ‘no-go zone’

are more than likely to enter your home during the colder months as they search for both shelter and food. 

While they are unwelcome guests, these are highly skilled and will find a way in if you let them.

Rats can breed very quickly and if left untreated they can cause damage all around your while spreading disease which can in some cases be fatal.

Rat traps, poison and everything else in between are used to get rid of them, but often prevention is much better than removal.

For that reason, the experts at storage company Urban Locker have shared one quick and cheap way of keeping rats out of your home.

To keep rats out of your home, you need to start with your . Rats can smell food from just over a mile away so if you have overflowing bins or rubbish in your garden you may as well have a neon sign pointing at your home inviting them in.

While they have a strong sense of smell this can be used against them. Often people will use expensive chemicals to keep rats away from their homes, but a lesser-known yet “highly effective deterrent’ is using , specifically pickled onions.

Elizabeth Adams from Urban Locker said: “You can use expensive chemicals or you can use old rags soaked in pickled onion vinegar.  

“While it sounds silly, the overpowering acidity of the vinegar in the pickled onion disrupts the rat’s ability to detect scents which makes your home and garden a no-go zone.

“You can soak old rags in pickled onion juice and place them near suspected entry points, bin areas and corners of the garden so you can discourage them from lingering in your garden.”

They will need to be replaced every few days so they remain “effective”. Beyond using rags you can also “create your own rat-repellent spray” by combining equal parts pickled onion vinegar and water in a spray bottle and spraying this at entry points to your home and near your bin areas too — this can eliminate food odours that can attract rodents.

Elizabeth added that essential oils such as peppermint can deter rats too, but they contain volatile organic compounds which are extremely flammable and are a fire hazard. She said: “I would not recommend spraying them around your home.”

Rats are a nuisance and can be difficult to get rid of but by using the pickled onion hack you can deter them. But other methods can help too, one of which is planting certain plants in your garden that rats hate.

Elizabeth pointed out: “Plants such as lavender, mint, marigolds, daffodils, rosemary, sage and several others can be planted in your garden to disrupt the smell of a rat.  If a rat can’t smell inside of your home then it is far less likely to try.”

For best results, plant these plants along fences, around sheds, and near compost bins or generally anywhere that rodents might be tempted to settle.