Rats routinely use the drains to move around. The problem is when they use them the find their way into someone’s property or into a business.
Here’s a good example from a customer we’ve helped out in Northampton this month. The rats had used their teeth (which never stop growing) to create a route through the cement lining under the drain cover, and some of them were also swimming up the cistern.
The first part of any job like this for a pest control technician is to deal with the population that is conditioning themselves and their young into coming into the property at night for food.
This is done by learning about and taking advantage of their behaviour and routes, and setting rodenticide in their path. Only when we have the bait take up do we look at the proofing.
In this case one of our RSPH Level II qualified technician Gary Wilkinson was able to achieve the required bait take and a big factor in this was talking to the customer and making sure the internal food sources inside were removed.
We then had hungry rats searching for food and in those circumstances, getting them to take rodenticide is much easier.
Rodents can’t survive eating the rodenticide and once we had the bait take, we could then look at the proofing to discourage the same thing from happening again.
This was done using a combination of wire wool and cement to block the two main access points inside the drain cover, and also fitting a one-way steel rat value to allow the customer’s plumbing to work properly, but not allow rats up through the pipes.
A job well done!
