Pest UK Head Office Reading

About Pest UK

• pubs, restaurants and hotels
• school, college and university buildings
• farms and stables
• offices
• factories
• housing estates and apartment buildings
• shops

Pest problems we deal with

Mice and rats are prolific breeders year-round. The seek food and shelter in homes, restaurants, shops and offices, getting inside via the tiniest cracks or holes. Drains provide a perfect living environment for rats and they climb up through the pipes to enter a building.

Flies and cockroaches enter homes and business premises during the spring and summer in search of food. They are prolific breeders so an invasion of a couple of these pests soon becomes a huge infestation.

Bed bugs are very difficult to get rid of. People bring them into homes, offices and public places on their clothes or in their luggage. They can also be hidden in furnishings and clothing imported from abroad.

Fleas are brought inside by cats and dogs, and occasionally by humans on their clothes. They live in carpets and only move from the carpet to feed on animals or humans, leaving an itchy bite.

The larvae of clothes moths and carpet moths are massively destructive. A female moth lays up to 50 eggs which become larvae after a few days. They feed on wool and silk carpets, curtains, rugs and clothes. They are a problem year-round as centrally heated homes keep them active during the winter.

Birds such as gulls, pigeons and house martins roost and nest on buildings. They cause damage to roofs, solar panels and air conditioning units. Nesting materials block guttering and chimneys. They produce large amounts of droppings that smell unpleasant and are unsightly, carry diseases and corrode metals, stone and brick.

Solar panel proofing is a long-term solution to prevent pigeons roosting and nesting under the panels, preventing them causing damage that reduces their effectiveness.

Rodent proofing prevents rats, mice, squirrels, glis glis accessing a building. Ultimately it saves costs by stopping repeated call outs to pest control technicians to get rid of infestations.

Squirrels and glis glis find their way into loft spaces and cause lots of noise and damage by tearing up insulation and gnawing timber, pipes and wiring.

Wasps and honey bees often nest in chimneys, roof spaces and other cavities within buildings. Colonies can consist of thousands which are very noisy and if they’re disturbed they will sting.

Ants usually live in nests in the ground. They only invade properties in search of food, but they mostly travel in large numbers. Prevention is the best cure but because they can access a property via a tiny crack it is difficult to find how they’ve gained access.

Foxes are noisy and scream loudly at night, mark their territory with unpleasant scents and droppings, attack pets, dig up gardens and scavenge in bins. They carry disease such as mange which can be picked up by dogs and toxoplasmosis that causes blindness in children.

Ladybirds collect in huge numbers in the autumn to hibernate. They are a nuisance as there are so many of them and they secrete a yellow chemical which can stain walls, furniture and window frames

Rabbits cause damage to lawns and plants. It is a legal obligation that every occupier of land takes responsibility to prevent rabbits from causing damage.

Molehills usually appear in early winter and spring. This is when moles dig temporary shallow tunnels just below the surface of lawns and flowerbeds whilst searching for earthworms. They push up displaced soil in vertical tunnels which form the molehills.

About Reading

Reading is the largest town in Berkshire, situated at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Kennet. There is evidence of a Saxon settlement here dating back to the 8th Century. Due to it’s location King Henry I, son of William the Conqueror, chose to build an abbey here and in 1121 the foundation stone of Reading Abbey was laid. Unfortunately he died in 1136 before it was completed and is buried in front of the high altar. The Abbey church was officially opened in 1164 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. Monks lived, worked and worshipped there for more than 400 years before the abbey was destroyed during Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. The ruins still stand within Forbury Gardens.

By 1525, Reading had become the largest town in Berkshire and was the 10th largest town in England when measured in taxable wealth. By 1611 the population had expanded to over 5000.

The location of Reading made it a place of vital importance during the Civil War fought between the King and Parliament from 1642 to 1646. The town sat astride the Great West Road, controlling the way to the west of the country, and the Thames, a vital artery for the transport of military equipment and material from London to Parliament’s armies, flowed by it. Captured by the royalists in November 1642, Reading became an important garrison once King Charles I had decided to make Oxford his war-time capital. For Parliament, the retaking of the town was necessary before operations against Oxford could be mounted. The town swapped sides on several occasions.

The 18th Century saw the beginning of a major iron works and the growth of the brewing trade. It benefitted from better designed turnpike roads which led to it being on the major coaching routes from London to Oxford and the west country. It was gained from increasing river traffic on both the Thames and Kennet. The opening of the Kennet & Avon canal in 1810 made it possible to travel by barge from Reading to the Bristol Channel.

By the 19th Century the town had grown rapidly as a manufacturing centre and in 1841 the Great Western Railway arrived which benefitted the towns brewing, baking and seed growing businesses. In 1851 the population was 21,500.

Today Reading is one of the fastest growing regions in the UK. It has three main business parks: Thames Valley Park, Green Park Business Park and Arlington Business Park. It is the home of tech companies such as Microsoft,  ING Direct, Oracle, Vodafone, Verizon, CGI, IBM, Tata, Ericsson, Apple, Accenture, Fujitsu, Infosys and Wipro.

The Oracle is a three-storey indoor shopping and leisure mall built on the banks of the River Kennet in 1999. The area was formerly the site of a 17th Century workhouse with the same name. The mall consists of 80 shops, 22 restaurants and cafes located along the riverside as well as an 11-screen cinema. The Reading music festival has been held  annually since 1955, and was attended by 105,000 people in 2019.

The museum of Reading, opened in 1883, houses the UK’s only copy of the Bayeaux Tapestry which was made in 1885. Reading University is ranked in the top 1% of universities in the world. It is a research-intensive campus university, recognised for its expertise in areas such as climate science, business, agriculture and food science.

For more information about the history of Reading see https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/