What a Kenton Back Garden Offers a Rat
The houses on the Brent side of Kenton Road were built with space behind them, and ninety years later those gardens hold a shed, a compost heap, mature planting along the boundaries and a garage at the side of the house. Woodcock Park and the open ground around it are within easy reach of the back fences. None of that is a problem by itself. It turns into one when shelter and food end up side by side.
Sheds, compost bins and the bird table
A shed standing on bearers, a garage slab that has cracked and lifted at one corner, and a compost bin sitting straight on soil all give a brown rat a dry space to dig into. Seed knocked off a bird table, windfall fruit under an old tree and kitchen waste tipped onto an open heap keep it there instead of moving on. One animal crossing the lawn is not proof that the house is affected, and what a garden sighting actually tells you is worth reading before you assume the worst.
The fence line between plots
Rats travel with cover on at least one side, so the strip where two gardens meet — fence panels, ivy, a line of bins, the narrow gap behind a shed — works as a road running the length of the block. It is why one household clearing up achieves less than a whole row doing it, and why what happens two gardens away can matter as much as what happens in yours.
The Low Openings at the Back of the House
The move indoors happens at ground level, and almost always at the back or the side rather than off the front drive. On a house of this age the candidates are the air bricks that keep the timber floor ventilated, the hole where a kitchen or bathroom waste pipe passes through the brickwork, a back or side door whose threshold has worn hollow, and the foot of a garage door that no longer meets its slab. Where a rear extension was added, the joint between its floor and the original wall is worth a look as well. How rats get into homes runs through the routes in order. If there is nothing open outside and yet something is moving under the floor, a fault in the drainage below the house is the other explanation, and that is a drainage contractor's work after a camera survey.
Signs Around a Family House in HA3
- Burrow holes in soil beside the shed base, the compost bin or the garage wall
- Smooth flattened runs through long grass, under a hedge or beneath the fence panels
- Gnawed sacks of bird seed, bulbs or bulk pet food stored in the garage
- Scratching under the floorboards of a back room once the house has gone quiet for the night
- Greasy smears where a pipe enters the wall, or at the bottom corner of the garage door
The first signs of rats takes each of those further. Droppings about the size of a grain of rice belong to something smaller, so mouse control in Kenton is the booking for those, while heavy movement overhead in daylight points at squirrels.
The Order of Work
Rat jobs go wrong when the steps are taken in the wrong sequence. On a house like this the order that works is: establish the route, deal with the rats, strip the garden of food and shelter while that is under way, and close the openings last.
- Note where you see or hear activity and at what time, and photograph burrows, droppings or gnawing before anything is tidied away
- Book treatment for the address rather than waiting to see whether it settles down by itself
- Take the feeders down for now, shut the compost bin, and move seed, bulbs and pet food into metal or rigid plastic containers
- Once the property has gone quiet, have the small openings at the back and side sealed
- Do not tape or stuff an air brick: it ventilates the floor, and a rat underneath will simply look for another way out
- Do not scatter shop-bought poison in a garden used by children, dogs, foxes and birds
Booking a Rat Visit in HA3
What to tell us
Say whether it is a house or a flat, whether there is a garage and whether a door leads from it into the house, and where the signs are: garden, garage, under the floor or up in the roof. If you are in one of the flats above the shops near Kenton station, say which floor you are on and whether there is a yard or bin store behind the parade.
Getting ready
Clear the cupboard under the sink, make the path along the back of the house walkable, and pull pots, bags and logs away from the shed and the garage wall so the ground beside them can be seen. Keep pets indoors or out of the way while the work is going on.
Afterwards
You will be told what was found and what happens next. How long the whole thing runs depends on the property and on how settled the rats are, which this guide to timescales explains. Get in touch again if fresh burrows appear or scratching starts up after a quiet spell.
Making the Garden Less Worth Living In
Once the house is quiet, the garden decides whether it stays that way. Close the space under a shed or a raised timber floor with mesh carried down into the ground, stand the compost bin on a hard base with its lid shut, keep the ground under the bird table clear or leave the feeders down over winter, and cut ivy and dense planting back off the house wall. The gaps into the building itself are the work of rodent proofing in Kenton, and rat proofing sets out what lasts. Neighbouring Preston sees the same pattern through the seasons.
For the borough as a whole, including the drain faults behind rats in the older southern terraces, see Rat Control Brent.
