GPR is Ground Penetrating Radar – essentially this is a machine that transmits electromagnetic waves into the ground and then measuring how these bounce back off whatever lies beneath the soil

Firstly I’ll say that Pestology don’t use IR cameras in any aspect of their diagnostics and therefore that pretty much summarises our opinion of its role in this game – none!

In this business you spend a lot of time talking to people about rats and their experiences with them and just like talking to a fisherman on the bank, sooner or later a pair of hands and some wide eyes get used to explain to you just how big this animal was.

We talk to 100’s of customers every month who are suffering from a rat problem and often they come to us when they’ve exhausted all other options and all aspects of their understanding of how they are getting in.

At the time of writing we are undertaking around 150 jobs each month so we get exposed to a lot of rat situations and rat afflicted people

Both creatures look incredibly similar (hence the question) but first let’s just clear up the common notion that mice are just small rats or that mice and rats are the same thing (yes, we hear this regularly…)

Since March 2020 started, we have received increasing enquiries asking questions relating to links between rat infestations and COVID-19. Do rats spread Coronavirus? Am I at risk of catching COVID-19 from rats?

An interesting statistic from our private client base is that a very significant percentage fall into one of two groups: Those who are about to sell and those who have just bought.

We talk to a lot of people in this business (or rather they talk to us/at us) and the one constant is people’s embarrassment or hesitation to declare and discuss their rat infestation. Even when it’s clearly a very significant and established problem (i.e. blow flies and stench) people will still play it down as...

All manufacturers of rat valves will stipulate an inspection/maintenance interval following fitment. Typically this involves a cost so people often ask us whether this is just a prudent measure or an actual necessity? Think of the life a rat valve leads… it’s subject to a continual onslaught of differing water levels, rates of flow, pH...