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What is it like helping London’s property owners and businesses remove and deter rats from their properties?
Read our Q&A with Jim England, CEO at Protex Pest Control in London. Protex Pest Control provide rat control services and rat removal services in London, and its surrounding areas.
Yes, we remove rats every day, but they aren’t the only pests we deal with. In any typical day our team will have helped property owners with a wide range of pests from ants and bedbugs to mice and pigeons.
It depends how long they have been nesting. A female rat can have a litter every six weeks. Each litter has on average 6-8 offspring. The females from the new litter will be ready to produce their own brood from as young as five weeks old. So, as you can see it doesn’t take long for a large infestation to occur.
We were working on a property in North London where a couple had just spent around £2 million on their new home. The lady had a bad phobia about mice, let alone rats. So, we had to work with her husband and pretend it was a minor mouse problem in the basement. We undertook a baiting programme. On our follow up visit, I was met by the lady who told me her husband was held up at work. I went into the basement and removed 16 rats. Knowing the lady’s phobia, I simply advised her that all was fine, and the baits were untouched. It was a little white lie, but her husband had told me if she thought anything had been there, she would move straight out!
There is a long standing saying that there are more rats than humans, but this is hard to prove for certain. What is definite is that rats will thrive and breed in areas that offer food and shelter. Any large city will provide lots of options for rats. Many rat infestations in our homes can be linked to a defect in our sewer systems. As more properties become Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO’s) it means we are putting more pressure on the sewer system, which leads to breakages, which then means more rats entering our homes and businesses.
Yes. Rats have been linked to public health for centuries. We will all remember learning about their link to the bubonic plague during a school history lesson. It was believed they carried the fleas that caused the disease. While things are not so severe today, rats do still spread diseases such as Salmonella, Listeria, Toxoplasma gondii, Hantavirus and Weil’s disease.
They do this, because they mark their territory by urinating everywhere they go, and then spread diseases as they encounter surfaces in the property.
Rats will enter a property from the outside through small gaps and holes in drains or walls or air vents, so it’s important to know where to find them and close them up. Also don’t put large plants or piles of leaves against your property. They provide great hiding spots for rats to find a route inside. Inside the property, make sure there aren’t any open pipes or gaps around pipes, particularly in the kitchen. It’s also important to always put food away and ensure rubbish is put inside sealed bags and then a bin with a lid.
Since I founded Protex Pest Control, I can honestly say we are motivated every day when we see the happy and relieved faces of our clients, because we’ve solved their pest problem. The fact that we’re helping homes and businesses to keep their properties safer and free from disease is in my opinion the best job in the world.
To learn more about Protex Pest Control visit www.protexpest.co.uk
