We talk to a lot of people in this business (or rather they talk to us/at us) and the one constant is people’s embarrassment or hesitation to declare and discuss their rat infestation. Even when it’s clearly a very significant and established problem (i.e. blow flies and stench) people will still play it down as...
All manufacturers of rat valves will stipulate an inspection/maintenance interval following fitment. Typically this involves a cost so people often ask us whether this is just a prudent measure or an actual necessity? Think of the life a rat valve leads… it’s subject to a continual onslaught of differing water levels, rates of flow, pH...
If you’re near bottom of the food chain in life then one thing that assists with your survival is the ability to squeeze through small holes. The good thing about a food chain is that the animals above you are physically bigger and so generally can’t fit through the same holes – this works to...
Think again we say! We hear this all the time and yet every time we attend to do our own drain survey, we find what everyone else has overlooked. Yes everytime. So why is this? Well first you need to understand who owns what pipes and therefore what pipes are being inspected. If you call...
It seems easy for people to dismiss the humble rat as an unworthy adversary – stupid small hairy thing, right? Far from it is the reality… Talk to the people that have battled with rat infestations for years – they’ll show nothing but a grudging respect for their constant ability to persist, evade and overcome....
Virtually all rats in the UK are the Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus) – this is also known as the Brown rat or Sewer rat. Rattus norvegicus likes to live in sewers and when the Victorians invented the sewer and put in Britain’s drainage infrastructure, this species of rat found the perfect place to live, feed...
Rat infestations to building fabrics put both at risk – they are cited under the Public Health Act 1961 for good reason! Once rats have gained access to your building fabric (i.e. wall cavities, floor cavities, roof void etc.) then primarily its damage to your house that’s at risk – health implications don’t really come...
We often come across customers who have spent thousands with roofers and builders have every last hole in their roof plugged convinced rats were climbing up the sides of the building at night and getting into the roof void that way. People talk to us about ‘roof rats’ and seem to think that there is...
The theory behind them… Rat valves or ‘rat flaps’ are simple devices that stop rats travelling past a certain point within a drainage system. Drainage systems flow from A to B – inherent to all drainage networks is a gradient to achieve this. This flow of water therefore carries momentum and it’s this momentum that...
We speak to a lot of customers convinced that rats have burrowed under their foundations to emerge beneath their floors. This is an alarming thought as, if it were true, how can this possibly be stopped? Well luckily it isn’t true for the vast majority of cases. How deep are our foundations? There are 2...