Hi!
This seems to be a problem plaguing London in many ways, I have not talked yet to someone living in London who has not had mice, at some place they lived in, at some point in time.
First of all, about the duty of the tenant to take care of the mice - in my contract it's written that the tenant has to take care of any pests in case it was the tenant's fault that they came over, and this can actually be proven by the inspection of a specialist.
In my newly rented flat in North London, I had droppings, just one or two, since day 2 or 3, and I made the mistake to not report them to the agency (Greene&Co, who, by the way, were doing a terrible job at getting in touch - I had some problems that needed to be fixed when I moved in, I reported them right away, and then several times over, and they answered in 2 months - unacceptable), so one day, after three months in the flat, there was a mouse roaming along my living-room!
I did take some precautions before that occurred - I sealed off some big gaps, closed some cabinets, but the droppings still kept appearing, in the same place, under the boiler in the kitchen. I also plugged-in an electronic device which seemed to have stirred them up, instead of deterring them.
So after that mouse was spotted, I called, basically, the first pest control service that showed up in Google search - a guy named Kurt, company very cunningly named "pest Control" - and he thoroughly inspected the whole flat (1 bed, 1 floor, no stairs, all carpeted, except for the bathroom and kitchen), caught the mouse, placed poison in key places, and also identified the source of the mice as being in the kitchen, around the pipes. He charged a steep 240 £ for getting rid of the rodent, inspecting the flat, placing poison, plus one extra visit, and it was also 7 PM already.
In any case, this did not help us get rid of the problem but the good thing was that he said that there were signs that the flat was ridden with mice since years and also that it was obvious the company which did the renovation didn't care to seal-off a lot of potential entry points for the rodents - a thing which I have clearly understood by myself, when I inspected the kitchen, after spotting the first droppings.
So I wrote to the agency (they manage the flat), asking for a refund, they refused, pointing to the contract, but before I had a chance to get into a fight with them, my landlords had the initiative to pay for the pest control services. They also sent a gift-box over, apologising for the rodent problem and the slow-to-react agency. That was really nice.
Coming back to the mice, Kurt came back, inspecting the poison traps and concluded that a bigger intervention needed to follow up, so he recommended another guy, who would come and fix the holes, operation during which he would have to dismantle part of the kitchen - all-in-all, 3-4 hours of work at 70£/hour.
Here is when I thought: ok, but I'll pay 2-300 £ and have no guarantee that the problem will go away... I need someone serious to deal with this!
That's how I got to Superproof, after a brief but thorough internet search.
I wrote them an email, asking for a price estimate, a nice lady answered promptly, giving details, she then called (she had a soothing, grandma-like voice - good for building trust), and we managed to get me on a next day appointment because they had a cancellation.
The next day (it was a Friday), they came and did the job.
Now, do not expect a horror story, the job seemed to have been done, and my review will be quite positive.
They called early in the morning, got lost but found the flat around 9. The team was just one Polish guy, quite scruffy and a bit "lost", generally, who made a rather loose inspection of the flat, compared to Kurt's, and then proceeded to work on the kitchen - he prepared some mortar, to cover up the gaps left between the walls and the floor, which were pretty big, then he sealed off one big hole around the gas pipe, with a combination of a metal net and a special gel, and he also sealed the kitchen floor, along the walls. He also treated another hole around the water pipes under the sink in the bathroom, then covered with plastic caps the entry points of the heating pipes into the floor.
My guess was that he was more of a construction worker than a pest control specialist, but maybe that is the point, actually, that they don't just control the mice but do some finishing work necessary to make it hard/impossible for the mice to enter the flat.
Although the problem seems to have been solved (no droppings since about two weeks), the overall feeling, though, was not as professional as one might expect after seeing their crafty website and adverts. Also, the pompous list of things done to the flat, which they sent by email after the works were done, exceeds dramatically the actual work which was done - I expected that the guy will really seal off everything in that flat but it was not the case, the work seems to have been thorough in the kitchen, and around the obvious spots, but quite loose in the rest of the flat.
I hope there will be no problems in the future, and also there is the 1-year guarantee on which I am counting heavily, and it was the main reason why I chose to pay the 499£ for Superproof.
My landlord accepted to split this cost, but now I'm thinking that all these could have been avoided have the renovation been carried out properly.
I mean, those gaps around holes and the really big ones around the floor, under the kitchen cupboards, should have been covered by the contractors who did the renovation, and so all these problems and my corresponding stress could have been avoided.
But maybe there is a whole thing among building maintenance contractors in the UK and pest-controllers plus companies like Superproof, for the former to not really do a proper work of sealing/mouse-proofing these old houses, and so the latter will always have work to do.
That may be beneficial for the industry but stressful and costly for tenants and landlords alike.
Well, in any case, that's my story.
In case I'll have more experiences to share, I'll come back.
Cheers and stay mouse-free, everybody!
viva wrote:I'd love some recommendations for help with a mouse problem, please.
We rent a house and for a while have had a mild mouse problem which we thought we'd resolved but they have suddenly come back and are everywhere including upstairs in our bedrooms - last night I woke to find one rustling around in the corner - not happy! Does anyone have any recommendations from a company they have used (preferably one that is humane and child-friendly please)
I know a cat is a good option - but I am seriously allergic so we can't get one much as I would love to.
Thank you!
