A borough of gardens and outbuildings
Away from Ilford's town centre, Redbridge is made up largely of 1930s semis with their own gardens, sheds and garages, and rats here more often arrive above ground than through a fault in the drains. A shed base, a compost heap or a run of overgrown fencing gives a rat cover to approach a house without crossing open lawn.
Barkingside and Hainault's sheds and gardens
The comfortable 1930s semis and terraces of Barkingside, and the suburban streets around Hainault close to the forest, typically have generous rear gardens with sheds that are opened only now and then. A rat settled under one of these can be established for weeks before anything is noticed indoors.
Ilford's older housing and drains
Closer to Ilford town centre, where Victorian villas sit among newer regeneration flats, older drainage plays more of a part, and the giveaway is activity indoors with no obvious hole outside: scratching under the floor, a smell near the stairs, droppings behind a kickboard.
Getting rid of them: the order that works
- Confirm it's rats rather than something else, and note where and when you see or hear activity
- Take away easy food: bird feeders, split bin bags, food left out for pets overnight
- Book treatment rather than laying poison where children, pets or garden wildlife could reach it
- Leave any hole you've found open for now, so nothing is sealed inside a wall or shed
- Once activity stops, close the route for good - proofing above ground, a repair below it
Keeping them out once they've gone
In the interwar semis typical of Redbridge, that often means gaps around garage connecting doors and airbricks in the cavity walls, both easy for a rat to enlarge. In the newer flats around Ilford, gaps around service pipework and meter cupboards are the more common route, and proofing needs to cover the shared parts of the building as well as any one flat.
Booking rat control in Redbridge
Rat control anywhere in Redbridge is £190 for a flat and £240 for a house, and because around Ilford, where the town centre and surrounding streets, mentioning that when you book rat control points us towards the likely route in, with the rest of the detail on the Redbridge rat control page.
