Although they may appear innocuous as they dart along your garden fence, once these so-called ‘rats’ get inside your loft or wall cavities or roof space, they can cause damage. Just as it can turn into a repair bill quickly, squirrels can cause all kinds of damage to a home that can be expensive to repair, from gnawed roof timbers and chewed electrical wires to ripped insulation. When you begin to notice scurrying and scratching noises overhead in your Colchester home, you may be ready to start considering squirrel control, but not all pest control firms are exactly the same. This article offers some ways to determine the right one.
Squirrel Control Is Best Done by a Specialist
In some aspects, squirrels are a protected species in the UK and this makes them not as easy to deal with as setting a trap and letting the animal go to some other location. After all, it is against the law to take a grey squirrel out of the wild and return it. One of the main problems with self-service squirrel removal is that the good people trying to relinquish the animals are either breaking the law, or are taking or employing steps that are ineffective at alleviating the problem.
A professional squirrel removal company knows:
- In what areas squirrels may be trapped and how they must be addressed following trapping.
- Written recommendations for locating roof, soffit and wall cavity entry points.
- A choice between the quick, humane methods and the slower methods involving poison that can leave a dead and rotting animal inside the walls of your home.
- The steps to take to prove a property later for the squirrels not to come back.
When searching for squirrel control services in Colchester, that’s exactly the kind of expertise you’re looking for.
How to Tell If a Squirrel Control Company Is a Good Company
1. Local Knowledge of Colchester and North Essex
A squirrel’s behavior and nesting locations and entry points will depend on which housing stock is in your neighborhood. A company that has a true understanding of homes in and around Colchester, such as Stanway, Tiptree, West Mersea, Wivenhoe and the surrounding CO postcode area will have seen the typical types of loft spaces and roof lines that exist in the area, and have an understanding of the most common problem areas in local homes.
2. Proper Accreditation & Insurance
Anyone can be a pest controller so it pays to check credentials. Research technicians in recognized organizations like the Professional Pest Controllers Register, the Royal Society for Public Health, the National Pest Technicians Association or Basis PROMPT. Public liability insurance is also crucial – you don’t want to be without cover if something goes wrong when a technician is working in your roof space.
3. Humane, Legal Methods
The best squirrel control services know how to do this without any harmful treatments. It involves quick and efficient means of removal that will give you peace of mind that nothing is left behind, not poisons that have a delayed effect that may leave residues in your loft, accompanied by secondary pests issues and their associated odours. Finally a good Technical Person should tell you what is and isn’t permitted under UK law when it comes to grey squirrel trapping and releasing.
4. A Focus on Proofing, Not Just Removal
This is only half the solution, because you must get rid of squirrels already present in the loft. If the holes they’ve burrowed in do not get sealed later on, you will most likely experience fresh squirrels in a year. You can also ask any potential company you’re considering for quotes what the proofing process entails and it should include finding gaps, such as around roof tiles, vents, fascias and soffits, and filling these with squirrel-proof materials.
5. Response Time and Communication
The longer this is left, the more damage squirrels can cause, especially if electrical cables are involved; response time is crucial. Find a company that has same-day or next-day appointments, informs you about their schedule, and lets you know what they’re doing at each stage without leaving you in the dark.
6. Rate Them With a Star Rating
One of the best signposts of reliability is if there are genuine, recent reviews, preferably on a site like Google, not on a company’s own. Consider comments that say more than successful one-time visits, but instead address promptness, communication, results.
Why Hire a North Essex Pest Control Service?
If you’re considering your options as a homeowner or business in Colchester, North Essex Pest Control is an excellent family-run pest control service that checks off many of the above. They are an independent company that has built up decades of combined knowledge, are qualified with a number of professional associations such as the Guild of British Molecatchers, the National Pest Technicians Association, the Royal Society for Public Health and the Professional Pest Controllers Register and they do have public liability insurance.
Their methods of dealing with squirrels in particular are more humane than slow-acting poisons, in their opinion, because a squirrel who is caught, and retrieved, is safer and more reliable than a squirrel who may have gone to bed somewhere while having been dead for awhile. Their techs know how to locate entry points for squirrels into lofts, wall cavities, entrees between false walls, and the most dangerous places where squirrels chew and nest, such as electrical cables and roof joists.
North Essex Pest Control is available for customers in Colchester and a large radius surrounding the area in North Essex, spanning CO, CM and IP postcode areas, and can be called on any day of the week with the all important 24 hour emergency call out service for more severe infestations. They have three stars on Google, and industry accreditation ensures that they’re a good benchmark to compare other local squirrel control providers to when you’re making your selection.
Final Thoughts
The selection of the most appropriate squirrel control service in Colchester boils down to some factors, most importantly local experience, accreditation, humane and legal activities, proofing work, and happy customers. When you’re making a booking ask a few questions before you take the job — much cheaper to do that than the down the road price of having to pay for repeat visits or fixes to chewed cables and roof timbers. Whilst the day may be late to take up a professional pest control company, the earlier the sooner, the better. If a home has already been infested with the pests of the wild, the sooner the professional pest control company arrives, the less bother and costs you will face.