The Roofs Squirrels Use in Kilburn
A three or four storey Victorian house gives a squirrel plenty to work with: deep eaves, fascia and soffit boards repainted far more often than they have been replaced, valleys between roof slopes, parapets, and chimney stacks with flashing round them. Height is no obstacle at all. Squirrels go up brickwork, drainpipes and ivy, and cross from a branch to a gutter without breaking stride.
Along the terrace
Where houses are joined in a row, the roof is continuous even though the front doors are not. In older roofs the wall between two lofts does not always reach the underside of the tiles, and in a run of houses divided into flats at different times, the spaces above the top-floor ceilings connect in ways nobody has ever drawn. A squirrel that got in three doors along can end up above your bedroom, which is why the neighbours are worth a conversation before anything is booked.
Loft conversions
Plenty of these houses have had the loft turned into a room, and that does not use up the roof. Dormer cheeks, the sloping voids behind eaves storage doors and the space over a flat roof at the back are all still there, unlit and undisturbed. Noise from one of them carries into a new bedroom far more plainly than it ever did from an empty loft. What squirrels sound like overhead helps you place where it is coming from.
Making Sure It Is Squirrels
Rats and mice use roofs too, and they need a different booking. Squirrels are busiest in daylight, especially the first hours after dawn and again late in the afternoon, and what you hear is heavier — running and thumping rather than scratching. Standing in the garden early and watching the roofline usually settles it. Squirrels or rats in the loft covers the other clues, and if it proves to be rodents, rat control or mouse control is the service to book.
What Happens, and in What Order
The £280 service is the trapping of the grey squirrels using your roof space, and when you book it you will be told what it involves and what is asked of you while it is going on. The one thing not to do meanwhile is have the hole closed. A squirrel shut in chews its way out, sometimes downwards into the house, and at certain times of year there may be young in a nest that cannot leave on their own.
The repair follows once the roof is no longer in use, and on a house of this height that is real roofing work — fascia, soffit, the edge of the tiles, flashing at a stack or parapet — reached from a tower or scaffold rather than a ladder. Lining up a roofer early and showing them exactly where the squirrels were going in means the gap can be closed as soon as it is safe to do so. Closing the way back in describes what a lasting repair looks like, and how long squirrel control takes explains what changes the timing.
Trees and branches
Cutting back a branch that reaches the roof comes last, after the squirrels are out and the repair is done, because trimming a tree does nothing whatever about an animal already inside. Large trees are a tree surgeon's work; a tree in a front garden may be covered by a preservation order, and a street tree is not yours to touch at all. Ask Brent Council about either before anything is cut.
Who Arranges It in a Converted House
Where the whole house is yours, the booking and the roofer are both yours to organise. Where you own or rent a flat in a converted house, the roof is almost always the freeholder's responsibility and the top-floor flat is simply the one that hears it first. Tell the freeholder or managing agent what you are hearing and at what time of day, in writing, and if you rent, tell your landlord or agent as well. With several flats under one roof, dealing with that roof as a single job is the only version that works.
Releasing a Grey Squirrel Is Against the Law
Grey squirrels are an invasive non-native species. Once one has been caught it is an offence to release it into the wild or to allow it to escape, so carrying one to a park and opening the cage is not an option, however well meant. The law on releasing grey squirrels sets the position out plainly.
For squirrels elsewhere in the borough, see Squirrel Control Brent; the larger period houses of neighbouring Dollis Hill carry the same kind of roofline. For the other pests around here, see Pest Control Kilburn.
