Pest Control Elmstead

Pest Control in Elmstead

Elmstead is a residential area on the eastern side of the London Borough of Bromley, centred around Elmstead Woods station and the surrounding streets of 1930s housing. The area takes its character from the ancient woodland at Elmstead Woods, which gives the neighbourhood a green and slightly secluded feel despite being well within the London suburbs. The housing is mainly 1930s semis and detached houses with mature gardens and the proximity of the woodland is the defining factor in pest activity here. Grey squirrels are one of the most common calls. The ancient oaks and beeches in the wood support a large population and the squirrels need very little encouragement to cross a garden and find a way into a warm loft. Properties on Elmstead Lane, Wood Lodge Lane and the streets directly bordering the woods see squirrel activity almost every autumn and winter.

Mice are also drawn in from the woodland edges, with field mice and wood mice joining the house mice that are already present in the older properties. The 1930s houses have had ninety years of settling and weathering and the gaps that have developed around service entries, along rooflines and at the junction of bay windows with main walls are all large enough for mice. Rats are less common in the residential streets but they do appear along the watercourses and drainage lines that run through and around the woods. The Quaggy River passes not far to the north and the network of streams and ditches in the area provides routes for rat movement between the green spaces and the built-up parts of Elmstead.

Wasp removal is a reliable summer job here, with the woodland edges, mature garden trees and the old garden walls across the area providing plenty of nesting opportunities. The sheltered, south-facing gardens behind the houses on Elmstead Lane and Castlecombe Road tend to produce wasp nests in good numbers. The woodland itself means that pest activity in Elmstead is always influenced by the natural environment next door and the transition between wild and suburban is never more than a garden fence away.