Rats
What a Back Yard Offers a Rat
A rat needs three things close together: food, water and somewhere hidden to nest. A yard behind a row of food shops can supply all three within a few metres. Food waste sits in wheeled trade bins that are opened and shut dozens of times a day. Rainwater collects in gullies and around downpipes. Cover comes from pallets, crates, flattened cardboard and the dead corners where a wall meets a fence. As the area page on Pest Control Golders Green explains, the flats above share many of these yards, so a rat problem out the back is rarely only the shop's.
Burrows in the corners
Where a yard is paved, rats dig at the edges: under a loose slab, beside the footing of a boundary wall, or into a strip of soil left along a fence. Where there is no soil at all they live under whatever has been stored and not moved, such as a stack of pallets or an old chiller left to one side. If you are not sure whether what you have seen is a passing rat or a settled one, where rats nest helps you judge.
The gardens and garden flats behind
The Edwardian houses that back onto a service area are the next stop. Their rear gardens are often long and planted, with sheds and compost bins, and the ground-floor garden flat of a converted house is closest to all of it. A rat that feeds at the bins at night can shelter under a shed two gardens away. What a rat in the garden means is worth reading before you assume the house is affected.
Signs Around a Yard or Garden in NW11
- Holes with smooth, worn edges at the foot of a yard wall or under a slab
- Gnawed corners on plastic bin lids or on the base of a wooden gate
- Droppings on top of pallets, crates or stored boxes
- Tracks and loose soil along the line of a fence between a yard and a garden
- Scratching under the floor of a ground-floor or garden flat after dark
The guide to the first signs of rats describes droppings and marks in more detail. If what you are finding indoors is small and the noise is high in the walls, it could be mice in Golders Green rather than rats.
What Helps Straight Away
- Close the lids on every bin in a shared yard, and report bins that no longer shut
- Keep waste bags off the ground and inside a bin, not stacked beside it
- Move stored pallets and crates, or raise them, so there is no dry space beneath
- Do not leave pet food or bird seed out in a garden that backs onto a yard
- Do not lay poison in a shared yard or garden where pets, foxes and children can reach it
Booking and Around the Visit
When you book rat control, tell us whether you are in a flat or a house, whether your home backs onto or shares a yard with a business, and where you have seen activity. If you rent, let your landlord know too. It helps if the yard, the side passage and the space under the kitchen sink are easy to reach.
You will be told what was found and what happens next. How long it takes depends on the property and on how much food the rats can still find next door, and how long rat control takes explains the factors. Get in touch again if new burrows appear or the scratching comes back.
Keeping Rats Away From a Home Beside the Parade
For a home next to a yard, the aim is to make your side less useful than the bins. Keep the garden tidy near the boundary, lift sheds or close the gap beneath them with mesh, and make sure a broken air brick or a gap around a pipe does not give the rats a way into the building. Small gaps like these are what rodent proofing in Golders Green deals with, and rat proofing covers the wider picture. The terraces of neighbouring Childs Hill have their own drain story.
For how rats behave elsewhere in the borough, including along the open brooks further north, see Rat Control Barnet.
