Pest Control Downe

Pest Control in Downe

Downe is a small village in the green belt at the far southern end of the London Borough of Bromley, famous as the home of Charles Darwin, whose house at Down House is now a museum. The village has a quiet, rural character with a cluster of older houses around the church, the pub and the village green and a handful of lanes leading out through farmland and woodland towards Biggin Hill and Cudham. The properties in Downe are a mix of period cottages, Victorian houses and some larger country houses and the rural setting means pest pressures come from the surrounding landscape rather than from the density of buildings. Mice are the most frequent pest call here. The fields, hedgerows and woodland edges all support healthy mouse numbers and from October onwards they move into houses through the gaps that develop in older brickwork, around old window frames and beneath timber doors.

Rats are present in the farmland around Downe and occasionally cause problems in gardens and outbuildings, especially on properties closer to the farms and livestock that dot the surrounding area. The quiet lanes and the hedgerow corridors connecting fields to the village give rats routes into the settlement that are hard to break. Compost bins, chicken coops and bird tables in village gardens all add to the attraction. The drainage in some of the older properties around the village centre is old enough that cracked pipes could also be a factor, though in a village this size the rural rat pressure from the surrounding land is usually the main driver.

Wasp nests are a predictable summer feature in Downe, with the old brick and flint walls, garden outbuildings and the sheltered spots around the churchyard and the older houses providing ideal nesting sites. The woodland at High Elms Country Park and along the lanes towards Luxted also supports squirrels that sometimes find their way into the larger houses at the edges of the village. Downe's quiet, rural character means that pest problems here tend to follow the natural cycles of the countryside rather than the more constant pressures of urban life.