Rats
Rats and the Bins of a Let House in NW4
A house let to five or six people produces a family's worth of rubbish and more, and the kerbside bins are sized for an ordinary household. On a busy week the lid will not close, and extra bags go on the ground beside it. A rat does not need to live in your garden to use that; it only has to pass along the side of the house at night and find a torn bag. The Pest Control Hendon page explains how the yearly changeover shapes a shared house, and the bins are where rats feel it first.
Between one tenancy and the next
The weeks around a move-out are the worst of it. Outgoing tenants clear their rooms and fridges in a hurry, and half-eaten food, cooking oil and packaging all go into bags that sit out past collection day. Bulky rubbish follows: a sofa, a bed base, a broken chest of drawers left on the front path or down the side. Those make dry, sheltered cover right next to the food, and if the house then stands empty over the summer, nobody is there to move anything or notice the burrow starting beneath it.
The side passage and the back garden
Many Hendon semis and terraces have a side or rear passage where the bins are kept, and in a let house it tends to become the store for everything nobody wants in their room. The back garden often gets the same treatment: long grass, a shed with a rotten floor, a pile of garden waste the last tenants never took away. Whether a rat in the garden means an infestation is worth reading before deciding the house itself is affected.
What to Look For Around the House
- Gnawed holes in the base or lid of a wheelie bin, or bags split open overnight
- Burrows in soft ground under bulky rubbish, the shed or the edge of a paved bin area
- Droppings along the side passage wall or behind stored furniture
- Scratching under the ground floor at night, especially below the shared kitchen
- A smell under the kitchen units that does not go away with cleaning
The first signs of rats covers droppings, runs and smells in more depth. Very small droppings inside the kitchen cupboards may mean mice in the shared kitchen rather than rats.
What Tenants and Landlords Can Do Now
- Tenants: tell the landlord or letting agent in writing what you have seen and where
- Put every bag inside a bin with the lid shut, and ask for an extra bin if the house needs one
- Landlords: have bulky rubbish collected rather than left for the next tenants to deal with
- Do not leave loose food waste in open boxes in the side passage or garden
- Do not put poison down in a shared garden, where other tenants' visitors, children and pets can reach it
Booking a Rat Visit in Hendon
When you arrange a visit, say whether it is a whole house or a flat, whether it is let by the room, and where the signs are: bins, garden, side passage, under the floor or inside. Say who can let the technician in and whether the garden and any locked rooms can be reached. Afterwards you will be told what was found and what happens next. How long it takes depends on the property and on how settled the rats are, and how long rat control takes explains what affects it. Get back in touch if bins are gnawed again or fresh burrows appear.
Keeping Rats Away From a Shared House
The fix is mostly about waste. Enough bin capacity for the number of people living there, lids that close, bulky items booked for collection at the end of each tenancy, and a garden cleared before new tenants move in make the biggest difference. A short note in the house about bin day helps more than it sounds. Where rats have found a way under the floor or into the kitchen, rodent proofing in Hendon closes small gaps, and rat proofing goes into the detail. For the brook corridors and drain faults elsewhere in the borough, see Rat Control Barnet.
