Warehousing and trade units near Heathrow
The warehousing, trade counters and distribution units that line the roads towards Heathrow give rats plenty of cover, stored goods and loading-bay gaps to exploit, and a rat problem here can move between several units before anyone notices. Businesses in this part of the borough often need a survey of neighbouring units, not just their own, to find where the activity is really coming from.
Uxbridge and Hayes's older drainage
Uxbridge's town centre streets and Hayes's older terraced housing near the Grand Union Canal sit on drainage that predates much of the borough's newer development, and a cracked pipe or shifted joint here can carry rats up into a floor void with no hole visible outside. Scratching beneath the floor with no sign in the garden points toward this explanation, just as near Ruislip, where 1930s Metro-land suburban semis.
Ruislip and Northwood's gardens
Further from the airport, in the Metro-land semis of Ruislip and Northwood, rats are more likely to come from a garden shed, a compost heap or a garage than from the drains, since this housing sits on newer, better-maintained pipework than the borough's older centres.
The order that gets rid of them
- Confirm the animal, and note where and when you have seen or heard it
- Remove easy food outdoors or around loading areas: bins, spilled stock, food left down for pets
- Book treatment rather than laying poison where children, pets or wildlife could reach it
- Leave any holes you find open for now, so nothing is sealed inside a wall or unit
- Once activity stops, close the route properly rather than just tidying up
Closing the route for good
The rats that are there get removed by treatment; the gap itself needs dealing with separately, whether that's near Harefield, where a village at the borough's northern edge, or elsewhere in the borough. Above ground that means sealing around pipes, worn thresholds and damaged airbrick covers, or loading-bay gaps and service ducts on trade premises, with materials a rat cannot chew through - our rodent proofing service covers this. A drain-based route needs a camera survey and below-ground repair, that's the only fix that lasts, as anyone near Hayes will recognise, where dense terraced streets and warehousing close to the Grand Union Canal and the roads.
Booking rat control in Hillingdon
Rat control anywhere in Hillingdon is £190 for a flat and £240 for a house, and because around Uxbridge, where the town centre and the streets around the former RAF Uxbridge land, mentioning that when you book rat control points us towards the likely route in, with the rest of the detail on the Hillingdon rat control page.
