Rodent proofing
The Garage as a Way In
An attached or side garage on an interwar house was built for a car, not as a sealed room. Its door, its floor and the wall it shares with the house all tend to have gaps, and a garage used for storage gives rodents a reason to use them. The storage itself is covered on Pest Control Edgware; this page is about closing the openings. The most common entry points are worth reading alongside it.
The main garage door
An up-and-over door rarely meets an old concrete floor evenly, especially where the floor has worn or dipped at the threshold. A gap of a finger's width at one end is enough for a mouse. Side-hung timber doors swell, shrink and rot at the bottom rail. A brush strip or rubber seal along the bottom can close a small, even gap.
The door from the garage to the house
Where a door leads from the garage into a hall, kitchen or utility room, the gap beneath it is often left open for air or because the floor levels differ. That one gap links the garage to the rest of the house. A threshold seal or brush strip under that door is one of the most useful things to do in the hour.
Pipes and cables through the shared wall
Washing machines, sinks and outside taps are often plumbed through the wall between garage and house, and electric cables are fed through for lights and sockets. The holes are usually cut wider than the pipe or cable. Proofing pipe and cable gaps explains how these are closed.
The side door and gaps round the frame
A personnel door at the back of the garage, facing the garden, wears at the threshold, and the joint between frame and brickwork can open over the years. Rodents coming up the garden use it before the main door.
What the Hour Covers, and What It Does Not
The service is up to one hour of work on small, reachable holes and gaps. On an Edgware house that might be seals under the internal door and the side door, and closing the holes round two or three pipes in the shared wall, depending on how many there are and how easy they are to get at.
Bigger jobs belong to someone else: a new garage door, a rotten frame, a broken concrete floor at the threshold, or rebuilding a crumbling wall. If that is what the garage needs, you will be told so rather than having it squeezed into the hour. A damaged drain is a job for a drainage contractor.
Treat First, Then Proof
Proofing comes after rat control or mouse control, once activity has stopped. Sealing a gap that rodents are still using can shut them inside the garage wall or under the floor, where they gnaw a new way out. Before or after treatment explains why the order matters.
Booking Proofing for an Edgware Garage
What to tell us
When you book rodent proofing, say whether you have had rats or mice, when treatment finished, and which doors and pipe runs you think they used. Mention the type of garage door and whether the garage is attached.
Getting the garage ready
Clear the floor along the main door, the side door and the internal door, and move boxes and shelving away from the wall shared with the house so the pipe holes can be reached. A gap behind a stack of boxes cannot be sealed.
After the work
You will hear which gaps were closed and whether anything larger needs a builder or door fitter. If fresh droppings or gnawing appear near a sealed gap, get back in touch. How to tell which holes rodents are using helps you tell an old hole from a live one, and Rodent Proofing Barnet covers the rest of the borough.
