June 3rd, 2010 by Shaun Day

Rats. If you didn’t purchase them from your pet store, chances are that you don’t want them in your home or small business. Pest control can cost hundreds of pounds per treatment, for what actually seems like very little work. Before you commit to treating rodents in the first place, you will want to check that they are in fact in your property. The tell tale signs of rodents are small gnaw marks in wooden skirting boards and furniture, as well as small droppings in cupboards and behind wooden furniture. It’s also possible that you may have heard rodents in your property during the night in attics and in crawl spaces or behind walls. If you can identify that you need rodent control, it’s worth shopping around to see what is available on the market other than commercial solutions. There are many DIY Pest Control Supplies sold to the general public for home and commercial use for a fraction of the price. DIY control kits are safe for use even if you have no training, as manuals are provided. Different kits clearly provide different setups for different uses, but advice is clearly given wherever the poisons are sold. If you are unsure on how to treat your problem, call the sales line of the shop that you are researching. The actual method of controlling rodents is to use pet and animal safe boxes to house the poison. The entrance holes are limited to a small size to ensure that family pets cannot access the poison inside, as typically rodents can access spaces where the entrance is less than one inch in diameter. Pest control boxes should be placed around areas where rodents appear to be active. The amount of boxes you will need depends on the degree of the problem, so by spacing them at around 10 metre intervals, a small property should be fully covered with a pack of two control boxes. The treatment of rodents isn’t purely chemical however; rodents clearly are interested in your property for a reason. It’s probable that you or perhaps your neighbour is being a little too liberal with leaving food scraps near your house bins. Once attracted to your area, they will then also need a way into the building – mice can squeeze through any hole that is around ¼ inch in diameter, so it’s important to assess your walls for potential gaps around retro fitted plumbing or building work. Raised steps are less of a challenge than you may imagine, so protecting your open commercial doorways with netting may also be a smart idea. Some smaller sets also come with free bait samples, so I would recommend trying the do-it-yourself method before shelling out hundreds of pounds of company profits or wages!