Rats near you

Brown rats live comfortably in a working drainage system, and a defect turns that system into a doorway. The usual culprits are a cracked or displaced length of clay pipe, a branch that was capped badly or not at all when a kitchen or bathroom was relocated, a damaged inspection chamber, or an interceptor trap that has lost its plug. None of those is visible from inside the house, which is why rats indoors with no obvious external entry point should prompt a drainage investigation rather than a second bait round.

The investigation itself is a camera survey of the below-ground drainage, and it is a different trade from pest control, although many firms will arrange it. What it produces is a location and a description of the defect, which is what allows a repair to be specified. Where the defect is on a shared or public sewer, responsibility may sit with the sewerage undertaker rather than with you, so it is worth establishing before anyone quotes for excavation.

There are also interim measures worth knowing about. Non-return devices fitted into a drain can stop rats travelling up a line while a repair is arranged, and sealing a redundant branch properly is often a small job with a disproportionate effect. What does not work is repeatedly treating a population that has an unlimited supply of new arrivals coming up the same pipe.

Leptospirosis in its severe form, Weil's disease, is contracted from the urine of infected rats. HSE explains that the bacteria enter the body through cuts and scratches, or through the lining of the mouth, throat and eyes, after contact with infected urine or contaminated water, and that risk is linked to places where rats are or have been present. It notes that the disease begins with flu-like symptoms such as headache or muscle pains, and that more severe cases can lead to meningitis, kidney failure and other serious conditions.

The control measures HSE recommends are unglamorous and effective: wear protective gloves, wash hands thoroughly and take breaks away from the work area, and wash and cover any cuts or abrasions with a waterproof dressing. For a homeowner clearing a shed, lifting decking, handling contaminated material or working near a watercourse where rats are present, that is the whole of the sensible precaution list.

The practical advice that follows is also worth stating: do not sweep or vacuum dry rodent contamination, which puts material into the air. Damp it down first, wear gloves, bag the waste, and wash afterwards. And if flu-like symptoms follow work in a rat-contaminated area, mention that exposure to a doctor, because the history is what makes the diagnosis quick.

Section 4 of the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 gives a local authority the power to serve notice on the owner or occupier of land where it considers that steps should be taken for the destruction of rats or mice on the land, or otherwise for keeping the land free from rats and mice. The notice specifies a reasonable period and the reasonable steps required, and those steps may in particular include applying specified forms of treatment to the land, carrying out structural repairs or other works, and the timing of treatments.

Two features of that power matter when the problem originates on someone else's property. The notice can be served on an owner as well as an occupier, which is useful where a property is empty, tenanted or in probate. And it can require structural work rather than only treatment, which is what makes it relevant to the classic source case — a derelict outbuilding, an overgrown plot or a hoarded garden feeding a population that then spreads along a terrace.

There is a balancing provision. Where an occupier prevents an owner from carrying out required work, the owner can complain to the court for an order allowing them to proceed, and there are appeal rights against a notice requiring structural works. That is worth knowing if you are the person served rather than the person complaining, because a notice is not the end of the conversation.

Rat quotations are driven by how far the investigation has to go. The variables are the size of the plot and how much of it has to be inspected, whether activity is indoors or confined to the garden, whether the drainage needs a camera survey and possibly a repair, how much harbourage — decking, outbuildings, dense planting — has to be worked around or cleared, how many visits the programme runs to, how much physical proofing is required, and whether the source lies on land you do not control. A drainage defect turns a modest pest job into a building job, which is why the survey is worth doing early rather than late.

LokalMatch handles only the introduction. You set out the problem once with your postcode — indoors or outdoors, what you have seen, and whether there is any history of drainage trouble — and firms working in your area get in touch. There is nothing for homeowners to pay; the professionals pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not do the work, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend any of the firms that reply, so deciding whether a drainage survey belongs in the scope is a judgement to make with them.