Pest Control Chatteris

Pest Control in Chatteris

Chatteris is a small fenland town in Cambridgeshire, sitting on a low rise of ground surrounded by flat, intensively farmed land in every direction. The rich black peat soil around the town produces huge crops and the farms, grain stores and food processing operations in the area support large numbers of rats and mice. After harvest, when the fields are cleared and the grain is moved into storage, rodents that have been living in the crops head for the nearest buildings and the properties on the edges of Chatteris that border the farmland see a surge in activity every autumn.

The town itself has a compact centre around the High Street and Church Lane, with older brick buildings that have been standing since the Georgian and Victorian eras. These properties have the usual issues with worn mortar, gaps around window and door frames and spaces where services pass through walls and mice find their way in through these openings. The drainage ditches and lodes that cross the fenland around Chatteris provide routes for rats to travel between the farms and the town and the flat terrain means there is nowhere for water to drain naturally, creating damp conditions that pests enjoy.

The housing estates on the edges of town are mostly post-war builds with cavity walls and mice enter through air bricks and around service connections. The fenland environment means that any property near the drainage network is exposed to rat activity and keeping ditches clear and banks maintained helps reduce the problem. Wasp nests are common through summer in roof spaces and outbuildings across the town. The exposure of Chatteris on its low rise in the middle of the flat Fens means winter winds cut through sharply and that drives mice and other pests to find shelter in houses earlier than in more sheltered towns.