I have a top floor flat with mice problems as does the whole block of flats. The tenants have served notice and stated this was the cause to end the tenancy. The management company has treated and proofed the communal areas around the stairwell and lift but they are still coming up the stack with the waste water pipe from flats below as the stack is square and the pipe round. They are in the ceiling void and come up through the floor boards around the pipe and along the gaps under the kitchen unit. I have tried to block these with wire wool. This may help to stop them but doesn’t solve the problem below me.
The management company say it is the leaseholders responsibility even though the tenancy agreement says that leaseholders are only responsible for those service installations that serve their flat directly not the joint services.
Any ideas what I can do?
Thnx
The problem has to be dealt with immediately at its root cause, the access point where the gap in the stack is open to the outside/sewers. Until that is dealt with it is pointless baiting in your flats as you will be in a never ending cycle. Wherever that stack enters/exits the building has to have exclusion measures taken such as blocking it up and then baiting OUTSIDE to scare them away, at the same time as then baiting them inside to eradicate. be careful because if you use poison inside you will end up with a dead mouse (more likely a rat to be honest than a mouse) which will then create a swarm of flies and a terrible smell, and later a swarm of moths. While you are arguing with the management company (eventually they will have to yield as there is no other logical solution than excluding the waste pipe stack where it enters the building) you can let the tenants leave and then try to block the gap in the stack in your flat yourself but note this has to be something much more than steel wool because they know how to pull it out, they won’t bite through it but they will pull it! You can also use a lot of traps of different sizes and set up remote motion cameras to see how many there are and how they act around the traps to adjust your strategy, you can get good cameras from EZVIZ for £25. Or you could poison and retrieve the dead bodies but this risks you not being able to find a dead body and then the impact will be it is hard to let for 3-6 months as it will smell, flies, moths, etc. Note, Rentokil have a professional survey service, it is free to get them out and they do a thorough report and come up with a plan, but when you call them you have to let them know that is the service you want (the survey, not a simple baiting) and it will cost £2-4k to do all the exclusion work and then exterminate them from the inside. You need to get the leaseholders together on this quick as the longer you wait the more disastrous this will become and rodent damage is generally not on buildings insurance policies. I spent over £10k on a similar infestation if you include the costs of ripping up the wood floor in one room, the tiles in another, etc etc etc it never stops.
Great, thank you that’s helpful