Pest Control in Bicester

Bicester has grown faster than almost any town in Oxfordshire over the past twenty years, with new housing estates transforming what was a compact market town into a much larger place. The older centre around the Market Square, Sheep Street and Causeway still has the character of a small town, with stone and brick buildings that date back centuries. These older properties develop cracks and gaps as they age and mice find every opening. The pubs and restaurants in the town centre create food waste that draws rodents to the back lanes and bin areas and the old drainage beneath these streets gives rats an underground route between properties.

The massive new developments at Kingsmere, Graven Hill and Elmsbrook have brought thousands of homes on land that was recently farmland or Ministry of Defence property. Building on this scale disrupts the rodent numbers that lived on the land and the first years after construction see high levels of rat activity as the animals move to the new houses and their fresh landscaping. The drainage on new-build estates can also have issues with poorly fitted joints, which gives rats access to the underground pipe network. Mice are a year-round issue on these newer developments too, getting in through the standard weak points of air bricks, pipe runs and gaps around boiler flues.

Bicester Village and the retail parks bring huge numbers of visitors and a lot of food waste and the commercial pest control demands across the town are considerable. The farmland that still surrounds Bicester on most sides supports rats and field mice that move closer to houses after harvest and the green spaces and allotments within the town provide stepping stones for wildlife. Wasp nests are common across all parts of Bicester from May through to October, found in roof spaces, cavity walls, garden sheds and occasionally in the ground on the grassy areas of the newer estates.