Old drainage under Islington's terraces
The dense Georgian and Victorian terraces that make up much of the borough, along and around Upper Street especially, sit on drainage that has served shops, offices and housing for well over a century, and a cracked pipe or shifted joint can carry rats up into a floor void with no hole visible outside. This is often worse in a basement or ground-floor flat than higher up in the same building.
The Regent's Canal towpath
The canal running through the borough gives rats a green corridor of banks and towpath cover that runs for long stretches without crossing a road, and gardens or yards backing onto it can see activity that has nothing to do with anything wrong in the property itself.
The larger estates around Holloway and Archway
On the ex-GLC estates along the Holloway Road corridor and rising towards Archway, communal bin stores and refuse chutes are a more common route than anything in an individual flat, and a rat problem here often needs reporting to the block's managing agent as well as dealing with at flat level.
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: bird feeders, split bin bags, food left down for pets overnight
- 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
- 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, just as near Canonbury, where georgian squares and terraces close to the Regent's Canal. Above ground that means sealing around pipes, worn thresholds and damaged airbrick covers, or bin store doors and chute housings on an estate, with materials a rat cannot chew through - our rodent proofing service covers this. When the route runs through a drain, only a camera survey and below-ground repair will fix it for good, true near Islington too, where the heart of the borough.
Booking rat control in Islington
Rat control anywhere in Islington is £190 for a flat and £240 for a house, and because around Islington, where the heart of the borough, mentioning that when you book rat control points us towards the likely route in, with the rest of the detail on the Islington rat control page.
