03 May 2024

Permanent vs long-term baiting - What's best?

Laurence Barnard, BASF, offers advice on best practices and important considerations for safe and effective pest control.. More

29 November 2017

Pest Advice for controlling Ants

The commonest species that invades houses is the Black Garden Ant, which is actually very dark brown. All ants have the main divisions of the body (head, thorax, abdomen) distinctly separated by very narrow waists and have a sharp elbow joint in their antennae. They are highly organised social insects. It is the foraging worker ants that invade buildings in search of food. These are from 3 to 5mm in length and are attracted to sweet foodstuffs which they take back to the nest to feed to the larvae and queen.. More

29 November 2017

Pest Advice for controlling Bats

The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 provides protection for all species of bat found in the United Kingdom. . More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Bed bugs

Found some unexplained reddish brown spots on your bedding? Been bitten while slumbering? And have you ever wondered if bed bugs live anywhere other than your mattress?. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Bees

There are over 200 types of Bees in the UK, including 25 types of bumblebees! We've listed some of the most common here. Different types of bee may require different treatment methods. . More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Beetles

The main types of Beetle in the UK and we've got information on more of the types of Beetle you're likely to encounter.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Biscuit Beetle

The Biscuit Beetle is found worldwide but more commonly in temperate latitudes. It is common throughout the UK, especially in food storage and retailing premises, and are frequently encountered in a domestic property. They are small reddish-brown insects, only about 3mm long, which attack stored foods in domestic cupboard and larders.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Black Rats

The Black Rat or Ship Rat is now rarely found in the UK. This rat that brought the Black Death across Europe and the Great Plague of London in the 17th century.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Blow Flies

The term Blow Fly is a general description of a number of species of large buzzing flies, which include the Bluebottle, the Greenbottle and the Flesh Fly.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Bluebottles

The Bluebottle is a large buzzing fly with shiny, metallic blue body, 6-12mm long. One Bluebottle can lay up to 600 eggs, which in warm weather will hatch in under 48 hours and produce maggots which can become fully developed in a week. These maggots burrow into meat or carrion as they feed on it, and then pupate, often in loose soil, for about ten days before emerging as adult flies from the brown pupal case.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Body Lice

Small, flat, wingless, grey parasites about 2mm long with strong claw legs and which feed on human blood. They are similar in appearance to head lice and can easily be confused.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Booklice (Psocids)

Booklice (Psocids) are very common but harmless household pests. They are not caused by poor hygiene as they are just as common in scrupulously clean homes.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Brown House Moth

The commonest of the so-called clothes moths, with characteristic golden-bronze wings, flecked with black, folded flat along its back. The adult is about 8mm long and prefers to run rather than fly.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Brown Rats

The Common, Brown or Norway Rat, also known as the sewer rat, and are prevalent across the whole of the UK.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Carpet Beetle

The larvae (known as “woolly bears”) of these small, oval beetles have outstripped the clothes moths as the major British textile pest. The Variegated Carpet Beetle is 2 to 4mm long, like a small, mottled brown, grey and cream ladybird. The related Fur Beetle is black with one spot on each wing case, and there is a rarer Black Carpet Beetle.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Cats

As mouse-killers their efficiency varies enormously. Few of them really come up to scratch as they cannot often get into areas where mice can live in a building.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Cheese Skipper

A small shiny black fly with reddish eyes whose slender grubs “skip” by curving their body into a ring and releasing themselves. The larvae burrow into cheese or ham and can cause internal irritation if eaten. . More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Clothes Moths

There are several species of clothes moths, all of them characterised by folding their wings tent-wise along their backs. The adult Common Clothes Moth is 6 to 7mm long with pale, plain golden-buff wings fringed with hair. The rarer Case-Bearing Clothes Moth is duller and has three dark brown spots on each of its wings. . More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Cluster Flies

These are dark greyish flies about 8mm long with yellowish hairs on the back and with overlapping wings. In autumn they congregate in large numbers in upper rooms or roof spaces of houses to hibernate. They will then reemerge in Spring to seek out egg laying sites outside. A mass of cluster flies has a characteristic smell. They are sluggish in flight and are a nuisance in the house. The larvae of one species are parasitic upon certain earthworms, so this species is more common in rural areas.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Cockchafers

Large blundering insects are also known as May-bugs which are attracted to artificial light and fly into houses or collide with windows on warm evenings in May and June.. More

14 October 2020

Pest Advice for controlling Cockroaches

Got some uninvited dinner guests? Is the back of your fridge home to a colony of creepy crawlies? If you find your building crawling with cockroaches, you’re in the right place. . More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Crane Fly (Daddy-Longlegs)

The familiar Daddy-Longlegs. A large mosquito-like fly with a long narrow body, which enters buildings in late summer. Harmless, although unpleasant in appearance. Its larva is the “leather- jacket” which damages grass roots. . More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Crickets

Closely related to the Cockroaches, most species of cricket live outdoors, only rarely entering premises. One species, however; the House Cricket, may live within buildings throughout the year. 16mm long and yellow-brown with darker markings on head and thorax it favours warm, humid locations such as the heating duct systems of hospitals.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Death Watch Beetle

A wood-boring beetle whose grubs eat old hardwood structural timbers. Practically common in stately homes in which the beetle family has probably lived since they were built.. More

29 November 2017

Pest advice for controlling Earwigs

A long, narrow, brown insect 10 to 14mm long with characteristic “pincers” at one end, the earwig is often carried indoors in cut flowers or house plants.. More