Pest Control in Potters Bar

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 Potters Bar

Potters Bar is in Hertfordshire, 13 miles north of central London. It is located on the Great North Road, one of two road routes from the City of London to the north of England. It is part of the London commuter belt. It was historically part of Middlesex and formed the Potters Bar Urban District of that county from 1934. From 1894 to 1934 its area had formed the South Mimms Rural District. In 1965 the district was transferred to Hertfordshire County Council.

The town dates to the early 13th century but remained a small, mainly agricultural, settlement until the arrival of the Great Northern Railway in 1850. 

The origin of the Potters element of the town’s name is uncertain but is generally thought to be either a reference to a Roman pottery, believed to have been sited locally, or alternatively to the Pottere family who lived in neighbouring South Mimms parish. The Bar is thought to refer to the gates leading from the South Mimms parish and into the Enfield Chase parish, or possibly from a toll on the Great North Road.

Byng family

Wrotham Park is a neo-Palladian English country house situated within Potters Bar and Barnet on 2,500 acres of land. Originally part of an estate known as Pinchbank, it was first recorded in Middlesex in 1310 and owned in the 17th and early 18th centuries by the Howkins family, the property passed to Thomas Reynolds, a director of the South Sea Company, who renamed the estate Strangeways. His son, Francis, sold the property to Admiral John Byng who had the house rebuilt by Isaac Ware in 1754.

Admiral John Byng changed the name of the house to Wrotham Park in honour of the original family home in Wrotham, Kent. Byng never had an opportunity to live in retirement at Wrotham. Following his inadequately equipped expedition to relieve Menorca from the French during the Seven Years’ War; he was court martialled and executed in 1757 for failing to obey orders. This event was satirised by Voltaire in his novel Candide. The Admiral Byng pub in Darkes Lane is named after him.

A disastrous fire in 1883 gutted the house The house was rebuilt exactly as it was and still remains in the hands of the Byng family. They still own a lot of land in the Potters Bar area.

For more information about Potters Bar see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potters_Bar