Pest Control & Prevention 

Monitoring, controlling, and eradicating rodent infestations

At Czm8's, we do more for our customers than just put down poison and traps. You are invited to learn about the specific rodent pest control service you require, including options, add-ons, and prices, on dedicated pages for rat control, mouse control, and squirrel trapping, accessible from this page.

 

The tell-tale signs of rats and mice, and of grey squirrels​

In pest control language, mice and rats are known as 'commensal rodents, ' which means they benefit from parasitising on humans and their properties for as long as people let them. Rats and mice are notorious for spreading potentially lethal diseases to people, and along with another rodent pest, the grey squirrel, they are also capable of causing costly damages to homes, equipment and stock by gnawing.

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How do people usually notice pest rodents?

Most often, our customers have been alerted about starting infestations by hearing noises from the loft and/or finding rodent droppings in their homes. Later, some objects in the house may carry signs of rodent gnawing on them, packages of food could be torn open, and food eaten away or missing. Rat burrows in the ground may indicate nesting rats, a hole in the soffit or in the roof would suggest a grey squirrel or squirrels. Smears on the walls may give away established rat or mouse runs and frequently used entry points. Paths of bare and trampled earth in the lawn outside may be another indicator of a rat infestation.

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How we interpret some of the tell-tale signs of rodent pests to help you tell them apart

Noise - Rats and mice are nocturnal animals that are most active during the night when they also make most of the noise while grey squirrels are day animals. If a grey squirrel chose your loft for a temporary shelter, the most noise you can usually hear from it would be in the late evening or early morning. If squirrels are nesting and breeding in your loft, you can usually hear them at any time of the day and often also at night.  

Droppings - Mouse droppings are 3 - 6 millimetres long, of granular shape, usually dark-black in colour when fresh. Rat droppings are between 10 and 20 millimetres in length, shiny black when fresh and of a spindle shape. Droppings of grey squirrels vary in shape and colour depending on their diet, but are often spherical like those of rabbits or more elongated like the shape of jelly beans, most often 8 -13 millimetres in size.

 

Survey of your property for rodents, monitoring, and call-outs

We survey before administering rodenticides or setting up lethal traps for rodents. As such, the cost of the survey is already included in the prices of treatments that you can find on the pages dedicated to the control of rats, mice, and grey squirrels. However, it could be that you have more than one rodent pest species involved or none at all, which is why people consider calling in a professional, experienced pest controller. You can request our rodent pest survey when you are not sure what the pest is. The cost is £50 and it is fully refundable if we identify the pests and can administer a treatment on the same visit. Alternatively, we can do rodent monitoring with non-toxic bait and UV-light trackable rodent dusts or gels for £80 over two visits, or we can try and detect rodent pests with a wildlife camera, for which we charge approximately £100. If we detect and identify your pests, a £20 discount is available on the rodent control treatment that would follow immediately. No discount would be given if we have to take our camera trap away to watch multiple videos that were triggered by people, pets, or other causes, but not by rodents. We do not charge any callout fee for jobs scheduled in advance and attended between 9 am and 5 pm, Monday to Friday. There may be a separate callout fee for emergency jobs that have to be attended the same day or in the evening, on a bank holiday, or a weekend, ranging from £30 to £100. ​