Why the Rats Came Back

Why the Rats Came Back

A rat problem that returns is rarely a treatment that failed. It is usually a route that was never closed.

Killing rats and solving a rat problem are two jobs

Treatment deals with the rats that are in the building. It does nothing at all about the hole they used to get in, and a hole is not a one-time offer — it stays open for every rat that comes along afterwards.

So a property that is treated and not proofed will generally be clear for a while and then active again, often at the same time of year, because the seasonal pressure that pushed the first lot in pushes the next lot in too.

If your problem has come back a second or third time in the same property, that pattern is the diagnosis.

The routes that get missed

Some are missed because they are hard to see. Some because they are not where anyone is looking.

• Defective or disused drains — invisible without a camera
• Cavity walls with an open route from ground level to the roof space
• Service entries behind kitchen units and boilers
• Gaps at the roofline reachable by climbing rather than from the ground
• Garage-to-house connecting doors and their thresholds
• Neighbouring property in a terrace, where the route is not on your land at all

The drain one accounts for a large share of the repeat cases we see. It is also the one nobody finds by looking at a wall.

What to ask for next time

Ask what the route in was. If nobody can tell you, the job was half done, however well the baiting went.

Where the route cannot be established from the inspection and the problem keeps returning, a drainage camera survey is usually the next step, and it is cheaper than another year of treatments.

And where the route is on somebody else's property — a neighbour in the row, a managing agent's communal space, a public sewer — knowing that is worth as much as fixing it, because it tells you who to talk to.

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Other Rat Questions

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