How Much Does Rat Control Cost in Cambridge?

Rat control in Cambridge is £260, confirmed before booking, with no call-out fee.

Of everything on our price list, this is the one we would most encourage you not to put off. Rats breed quickly, they gnaw persistently, and a small problem becomes a large one faster than most people expect.

Start With the Drains

This is the single most useful thing to know about rat control, and it is the reason some rat problems keep coming back after apparently successful treatments.

Brown rats live in and travel through the sewer system. That network runs directly underneath and into every property, and it is a warm, food-rich, entirely sheltered environment. Where the drainage is intact, they stay in it. Where it is not, they come up.

• A cracked or collapsed section of pipe
• A displaced or open joint
• A redundant branch that was capped off badly, or not at all, during building work
• A missing or broken rodding eye cover
• A defective or missing gully
• An old, disused toilet connection left open under a floor

If rats return to the same property after treatment, the drains are the first place to look — not the second.

Reading the Signs

Droppings

Noticeably larger than mouse droppings, dark, and usually found in groups along a route or near a food source. Fresh ones are dark and soft; older ones dry, grey and crumbly.

Runs and smear marks

Rats are creatures of habit and use the same routes repeatedly, leaving dark greasy smears where they brush against a wall, a joist, a pipe or the edge of a hole. Outdoors, look for worn tracks through grass, along fence lines and under decking.

Burrows

Holes in banks, under sheds and decking, alongside foundations, at the edge of a compost heap. An active burrow is clear of cobwebs and debris, with loose soil at the entrance.

Gnawing

Rat incisors grow continuously, so they gnaw constantly to wear them down — on wood, plastic, pipework, insulation and cabling. Gnawed cable is the reason a rat problem in a loft is more than a nuisance.

Noise

Heavier than mice — scuffling, scratching and sometimes an audible thump, usually from a loft, under a floor or in a wall.

Disturbed insulation

Loft insulation pushed into tunnels and heaps is a strong indicator, and it is often the first thing noticed when somebody goes up for the Christmas decorations.

Health, Briefly and Accurately

Rats carry organisms that can cause illness in people, of which leptospirosis — Weil's disease in its severe form — is the one usually named. Infection is uncommon but it is a real risk, and it is spread through contact with rat urine, particularly via broken skin or contaminated water.

The sensible precautions are ordinary ones: wear gloves when clearing anything they have been in contact with, wash your hands properly afterwards, do not eat food they may have reached, and cover cuts and grazes before working in an area with activity.

What the Treatment Involves

1. Survey. Inside and outside, including drainage covers, the garden, outbuildings and the loft.
2. Establishing the route. Where they are getting in and where they are coming from, which are not always the same question.
3. A treatment plan appropriate to the household, discussed with you where there are pets, children or wildlife to consider.
4. Treatment in protected locations that non-target animals cannot reach.
5. Follow-up visits — rat work almost always needs more than one. BPCA describes rats as neophobic, meaning they have a fear of new objects, so equipment has to be left in place long enough to stop being new before it does anything.
6. Proofing recommendations, and a clear statement where the answer is drainage or building work rather than pest control.
7. Confirmation that activity has stopped before signing off.

What Draws Them to a Garden

• Bird feeders. Spilled seed under a feeder is the commonest single attractant in a domestic garden.
• Compost heaps containing cooked food, meat or bread
• Poorly stored bins, or bags left out overnight
• Chicken and pet feed left accessible
• Dense cover — deep ivy, log piles, overgrown corners, the space under decking and sheds
• Standing water, which they need daily

Removing the attractant will not clear an established population on its own, but it makes the treatment work faster and makes a repeat considerably less likely.