Domestic PestControlAcross the North West

What are the signs of pests in your home?

Most people hear or find something before they see the animal. Signs worth acting on:

• Rats: dark droppings around a centimetre long, scratching under the floor or in the loft at night, greasy smear marks along skirting boards and burrows beside sheds, decking or compost bins.
• Mice: spindle-shaped droppings a few millimetres long in kitchen cupboards and behind the cooker or fridge, nibbled packaging and a stale, musty smell.
• Wasps: a steady line of insects going in and out of one gap under the eaves, an airbrick or a hole in the lawn, usually from midsummer.
• Fleas and bed bugs: bites around the ankles (fleas) or in rows on the arms and shoulders (bed bugs), pets scratching more than usual, and tiny dark spots along mattress seams.
• Squirrels: thudding and scratching in the loft in the early morning rather than at night, chewed fascia boards and insulation dragged into heaps.
• Moths and carpet beetles: irregular holes in woollens and bare patches at the edges of carpets under furniture.

One mouse in a garage in October is not the same as droppings in a kitchen drawer. If you are not sure what you have, a photograph of the droppings or damage is often enough for us to tell you whether it needs a visit.

Why do homes across the North West get pests?

Housing and landscape vary widely across the region, and so do the problems.

Much of Greater Manchester’s older housing is terraced, built for workers in mill towns such as Wigan, and terraced streets still cover large parts of north and east Liverpool. In a terraced row the roof voids and under-floor spaces are often linked, so mice can move along the row and return to a house treated on its own. Older streets often have clay drains, and a cracked or disused pipe behind a yard is a common route for rats into a kitchen or bathroom.

Water shapes the picture too. The Mersey, the Manchester Ship Canal and the Bridgewater Canal all pass through Warrington, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal runs through Wigan and into Liverpool. Towpaths, overgrown banks and canal-side gardens with decking and sheds give rats cover and water within a short run of houses.

The new-town estates of Warrington and Runcorn have their own weak points: gaps where pipes and cables enter, boxed-in pipework and cavity walls that let mice move unseen between rooms. Out on the rural edges of Cheshire and Lancashire, and beside the mossland around Risley Moss and Chat Moss, rats and mice often move from fields into houses and outbuildings once crops are cut and the weather turns. Where mature trees stand close to rooflines, as in many leafier Cheshire suburbs, grey squirrels find their way into lofts more often.

Season matters as much as place. Rodent activity indoors tends to rise through autumn as temperatures drop, wasp nests are at their largest in late summer, and fleas often show up when the heating goes on and dormant pupae hatch. Bed bugs follow people rather than the seasons: they travel in luggage and second-hand furniture and have nothing to do with how clean a home is.

How does a domestic pest control visit work?

It starts with a conversation. We ask what you have seen and where, who lives in the house and whether there are pets, so the visit is planned before we arrive and the most pressing cases go first.

At the inspection we confirm the pest and, just as important, find out why it is there: the gap by the waste pipe, the broken airbrick, the open drain, the branch touching the roof. We then explain what we propose and agree it with you before anything is put down.

Treatment is chosen for the pest and the household. For rodents that may mean enclosed traps, bait in locked stations, or both. Professional rodenticides are sold only to users who can show proof of competence, under the UK stewardship regime run by CRRU UK, which expects them to survey before baiting, use bait only where it is justified and remove it when the job ends, so we do not leave poison down as routine. Wasp nests are treated with an insecticide dust at the entrance, and activity usually stops within a day or two. Flea, bed bug and cockroach treatments come with written notes on preparation and aftercare.

Where we can, we proof the entry point on the same visit. Where the repair is a job for a builder, a drainage contractor or your landlord, we write down exactly what needs doing and why.

Is treatment safe for children, pets and livestock?

It is when it is planned around who and what lives at the property. Bait stations are locked, fixed in place where possible and positioned where children and animals cannot reach them, and every station is recorded so nothing is left behind. In homes with toddlers, cats or dogs we often rely on traps inside the house and keep any bait outside, in stations, against the walls.

For insect treatments we tell you which rooms to keep people and pets out of, and for how long. On smallholdings and farms we look at where hens, horses and other stock feed and shelter before deciding on a method, because spilled feed that draws rats also brings animals close to anything we put down. We do not use glue traps, which are now unlawful for rodents in England except under a licence that is rarely granted.

How many visits will it take?

A wasp nest is normally dealt with in one visit. Rats and mice usually take two or three, roughly a week apart, so we can see activity fall before removing the equipment. Fleas need one or two treatments, bed bugs usually two, and cockroaches or squirrels more, over a longer period.

How do you stop pests coming back?

Treatment clears the pests you have; proofing keeps the next ones out. Typical work includes steel mesh behind damaged airbricks, sealing gaps around pipes and cables, brush strips on doors and garage doors, and repairs to fascias and soffits where squirrels or wasps have found a way in. Before sealing eaves we check for bats, which are protected by law along with their roosts, and for active bird nests, which must not be damaged while in use.

Drains that serve only your home and sit within your boundary are generally your responsibility, while shared sewers and drains beyond the boundary generally belong to the water company, which is United Utilities across most of the North West. A drainage survey, followed by a repair or a one-way rat valve, often ends a problem that treatment alone keeps returning to.

At home, keep bins lidded, store bird food in sealed tins, use feeders with seed-catching trays, and keep the space under decking and sheds clear. Treat pets for fleas all year round, not just when bites start.

When does DIY stop being enough?

Traps for a single mouse in a garage, or a strip of brush on a door, are reasonable things to try yourself. It is time to call someone when droppings or noises carry on after a couple of weeks, when you hear activity inside walls or ceilings, when a wasp nest is in a roof space, a cavity or near a door the family uses, or when the problem is bed bugs or cockroaches, which shop-bought sprays and foggers tend to scatter rather than kill. It is also worth calling earlier if anyone in the house is very young, elderly, pregnant or unwell.

Avoid blocking a hole while animals are still behind it: trapped rodents gnaw a new way out or die in the void. And do not handle droppings or nests without gloves.

Who is responsible, and what should you keep on file?

Under the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949, councils can require an owner or occupier to deal with rats or mice on their land, which matters where a neighbouring garden or empty property is the source. In rented homes, responsibility depends on the cause and the tenancy: disrepair that lets pests in usually falls to the landlord, while an infestation caused by how the home is kept may fall to the tenant. Where the two sides disagree, a dated report from an independent visit helps settle it.

Keep the written report from every job. It is useful if the problem returns, if you rent the property out, or if you sell. If you prepare food for sale from home or run a holiday let, file the reports with your food safety or property records: food law expects any food business, including one run from a home kitchen, to keep pests out and to show how it does so.