Pest Control Southsea

Pest Control in Southsea

Southsea sits on the southern tip of Portsea Island, packed tightly with Victorian and Edwardian terraces that run in long rows from the seafront back towards the centre of Portsmouth. The density of the housing here is key to understanding the pest problems. Terraced houses share party walls and mice move between properties through gaps in those shared walls, around pipework and along cable routes under floorboards. Mouse control is one of the most common jobs we carry out in Southsea and the older the property the more likely it is to have the kind of gaps these animals need. The streets between Albert Road and the seafront are especially busy for mouse calls, with many of the original Victorian houses now split into flats where shared risers and service voids create easy routes between floors.

Being a coastal town, Southsea has a serious seagull problem. Herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls nest on flat roofs and chimney stacks right across the area and during the breeding season from April to August they become noisy, aggressive and messy. The cafes and restaurants along Palmerston Road and Albert Road deal with gulls raiding outdoor tables and the bins behind food businesses attract them in large numbers. Rats also do well in Southsea for similar reasons. The Victorian drainage beneath these streets is old and in variable condition and cracked or collapsed drains give rats a route up from the sewers into gardens and beneath ground floors. We see this pattern across Southsea, but the streets closest to the Canoe Lake area and the eastern seafront tend to produce the most calls.

The green spaces around Southsea Common and the seafront gardens attract wasps in summer and the warm brick walls and south-facing roofs of the Victorian houses make perfect nesting spots. Wasp nests under ridge tiles and in wall cavities are a regular feature of our summer workload in this part of Portsmouth.