A borough shaped by the river
Greenwich and Woolwich both sit close to the Thames, with drainage that has served the maritime town and the old barracks buildings for a long time; Eltham and Blackheath, set back from the water, are mostly suburban houses and semis with their own gardens. A rat coming up through an old drain fault near the river is a different problem to one arriving across a garden further inland.
Old drain runs near Greenwich and Woolwich
The streets around Greenwich town centre and Woolwich carry drainage laid to serve flats above shops and converted barracks buildings, much of it well over a century old. A cracked pipe or a shifted joint lets rats climb from the sewer into a floor void, and the giveaway is usually indoors: scratching under the boards, a smell near the stairs, droppings behind a kickboard, with no obvious hole outside.
Gardens backing onto rail lines at Charlton
In Charlton, where terraced gardens run down towards the railway and the industrial land along the Thames path, rats are just as likely to arrive along the rail embankment as from any fault in the drains. Overgrown ground beside a line gives them cover for the last stretch into a garden.
Eltham and Blackheath's suburban houses
Further from the river, in the semis and larger houses around Eltham and Blackheath, rats more often settle under a shed base or garden decking before finding a way into the house, rather than travelling any distance through drains.
Dealing with them, step by step
- Confirm the animal, and note where and when you see or hear it
- Take away easy food: bird feeders, split bin bags, pet bowls left down overnight
- Book treatment rather than laying poison where children, pets or wildlife could find it
- Leave any holes you have found open for now, so no rat is sealed inside a wall
- Once activity has stopped, close the route: proofing above ground, a repair below it
Closing the route afterwards
A treatment visit deals with the rats present at the time, but it does nothing about the gap that let them in, true near Greenwich too, where the Georgian maritime core around the park and the river. At ground level and above, the fix is sealing pipework gaps and any damaged airbricks with rat-proof materials, as anyone near Woolwich will recognise, where dense converted flats and former barracks buildings. For anything below ground, a drain camera survey confirms the real fault instead of guessing at it, much as it does near Kidbrooke, where a mix of older estate housing and newer riverside-style apartment developments under the Kidbrooke. Our rodent proofing service deals with the accessible gaps above ground.
Booking rat control in Greenwich
Rat control anywhere in Greenwich is £190 for a flat and £240 for a house, and because around Greenwich, where the Georgian maritime core around the park and the river, mentioning that when you book rat control points us towards the likely route in, with the rest of the detail on the Greenwich rat control page.
