Proofing Inside Your Own Flat
In the newer blocks around Wembley Park and Olympic Way, the gaps a mouse uses to reach your kitchen are mostly where the building's services enter your flat. Because they sit inside your home rather than in the shared parts of the building, you can arrange for them to be sealed yourself.
Behind the plinths
Ease the kickboard away from the bottom of the kitchen units and there is often a rough opening in the floor or wall where the water and waste pipes come through. The gaps around those pipes are among the first things to close. Stopping mice getting behind kitchen units explains why this void matters so much.
Pipe boxing and appliance housings
Boxing that hides pipework often stops a little short of the floor or ceiling, leaving a slot at one end or both. Behind an integrated fridge or washing machine, the opening made for pipes and cables is frequently bigger than it needs to be. Closing the space around them takes away a sheltered route through the kitchen, and rodent-proofing pipe and utility gaps covers the detail.
Meter and boiler cupboards
Meters and boilers sit where supplies come into a flat, and the inside of the cupboard around them is rarely finished neatly. Check the back and floor of the cupboard for gaps around incoming pipes and cables. Anything involving the gas supply, the meter or the boiler itself is for a Gas Safe registered engineer, but open gaps in the cupboard around them can often be closed.
What Belongs to the Building
Shared corridors, bin stores and other communal parts are not covered by proofing booked for your flat. If mice seem to be getting into the building through one of those areas, that part is for the managing agent to arrange.
Older Wembley Houses: Air Bricks and Back Doors
In the Edwardian and interwar houses around Wembley Central, Tokyngton and Barn Hill, the weak points are mostly outside. Air bricks near the ground ventilate the space under timber floors, and when a grille cracks or the mortar around it gives way, a rat or mouse can get beneath the floor. That airflow has to be kept, so a damaged air brick should be covered or replaced with something that still breathes. Stopping rats at air bricks explains the choices.
Back doors wear along the threshold and at the foot of the frame, and on an older house that gap is often wider than it looks. A kitchen door onto the garden, with bins or a compost heap nearby, is worth checking at floor level. The size of gap a rat can use may surprise you.
What the Hour Can and Cannot Cover
The £180 service is up to one hour of work on small holes and gaps that can be reached. In a flat, that might be the pipe openings behind the plinths, the ends of the boxing and the gaps in a meter cupboard. In a house, it might be a damaged air brick and the bottom of the back door. How much is done depends on how many gaps there are and how easy they are to get at.
Bigger work goes to other trades, such as rebuilding brickwork, fitting a new door frame or repairing a drain. You will be told if what you need is for a builder or drainage contractor.
Treatment Comes First
Proofing is for after the rats or mice have gone. Close a gap they are still using and they can be shut behind a kitchen unit or under a floor, where they will gnaw another way out. If you still have activity, book mouse control or rat control first; before or after treatment explains the order.
Booking Proofing in Wembley
What to tell us
When you book rodent proofing, say whether it is a flat or a house, whether you had mice or rats, when treatment ended and which gaps you already know about: plinths, boxing, appliances, cupboards, air bricks or doors.
Getting ready
Empty the cupboard under the sink, clear the meter and boiler cupboards and move anything stored in front of the kitchen units. At a house, shift bins and pots away from the air bricks and the back door.
After the work
You will hear which gaps were sealed and whether anything needs another trade. If new droppings or gnawing appear close to a sealed spot, get back in touch; which holes rodents are using helps tell an old hole from an active one. Rodent Proofing Brent covers the borough as a whole.
