From the Trees to the Roofline
Squirrels travel through connected cover: from a boundary tree to a garden tree, along a wall, up a drainpipe, across the gutters. Where a branch reaches within a few feet of a roof they will make the jump, and where none does they will climb the brickwork, a soil stack or a thick growth of ivy instead. That is why a house with nothing overhanging it can still end up with something running about above the ceiling.
Where a terraced roof lets them in
On these houses the weak points are at the edges and the top: lead flashing lifted where a chimney stack passes through the slope, the gutter behind a parapet on the streets that have one, the little roof over the front bay, and fascia and soffit boards over the back addition that have been painted far more often than they have been replaced. On an end house a slipped tile at the verge does the same job. Once inside, the space above the ceiling does not always stop where your house does. How squirrels get into a roof describes what to look for from the ground.
Making Sure It Is Squirrels
Rats use roofs too, and they need a different booking. Squirrels are busy in daylight, particularly the first hours after dawn and again before dusk, and what you hear is weighty: running and thumping rather than light scratching. A few minutes in the back garden at first light, watching the gutter line, settles most cases. Squirrels or rats in the loft goes through the droppings and the damage, and if it turns out to be rodents then rat control in Kensal Green or mouse control is the service you want.
What the Trapping Service Covers
The service is £280 for the trapping of the grey squirrels using your roof space, and the figure does not move with the size of the loft or with whether the house is mid-terrace or on the end. When you book it you will be told what is involved and what is asked of you while it is going on, which generally means keeping the hatch shut and leaving the roof space alone. What it does not include is the building work afterwards.
Who Does Which Part
- You: access, a hatch kept closed, nothing in the loft disturbed, and a word with the neighbours on either side
- Us: the trapping, and telling you when the roof space is no longer in use
- A roofer: the repair, whether that is flashing at the stack, a parapet gutter, fascia and soffit at the back addition, or tiles at the verge
- A tree surgeon: cutting back any branch that reaches the roof, once the repair has been done
- Brent Council: asked first about a street tree, or any tree that may be protected or in a conservation area
Line the roofer up early rather than after the event, and show them exactly where the animals were going in, because a repair in the wrong place changes nothing. What a lasting repair involves is worth reading before you brief anyone.
Why the Way In Stays Open Until the Loft Is Quiet
Nothing gets closed while the roof is still being used. A squirrel shut in will gnaw its way out, and the way out it chooses is sometimes downwards through a ceiling into a bedroom. From late winter through the summer there may also be young in a nest that cannot leave on their own, which is a situation nobody wants to create behind a sealed board. How long squirrel control takes depends on the roof and on how many are using it.
Releasing a Grey Squirrel Is an Offence
The grey squirrel is a non-native species that the law treats as invasive. Once one has been caught it is an offence to release it or to allow it to escape, so there is no lawful version of carrying a trapped squirrel down to the cemetery gates and opening the cage. The legal position after trapping sets it out plainly.
Once the Roof Is Empty
Go up with a torch when you are told it is clear. Insulation gets dragged into heaps and thinned out where it matters most, stored boxes and soft furnishings get pulled apart for bedding, and the lid of an old water tank is worth checking. Anything that looks gnawed on a cable is for an electrician, and the damage squirrels cause in a loft lists what else to go over. A roof that has been used once will be tried again while the opening is there, which is most of why squirrels return to the same loft.
For squirrels elsewhere in the borough see Squirrel Control Brent and the guide Squirrels in Brent lofts. Neighbouring Kilburn has taller versions of the same roofline, and for the other pests around here see Pest Control Kensal Green.
