Birmingham: a Pest Paradise!

• Jun. 5 by Kimberley Gammon (0)

Laila Namini is a 20 year old Jewellery student at Birmingham City University. She is just one of the hundreds of people having to deal with a mouse infestation in their home.

Miss Namini has recently moved into a student house in the Balsall Heath area close to the city centre she stated ’We thought we were dealing with one mouse but a few days after moving in we realised that is was actually several.’

‘They come through holes and if there aren’t any holes they will make some. Next door is the problem because they won’t do anything about the mice in their home. They are prepared to live with it but we aren’t! Because it’s a terrace house every time we think we have got rid of them they just make tiny holes in the skirting boards and come back, it’s never ending.’

When asked how these rodent problems affected Laila she answered ‘I was gutted when we first spotted them, it was so stressful having to live with them. My house didn’t feel like my own and it seriously got me and my house mates down. Trying to sort the problem out was a huge headache because our landlord is either lazy or awkward… or both, which I think is probably the case.’

Dave Marshal, aged 43 and has been working for the Birmingham based pest control company ‘Pest-A-Kill’ for almost 11 years. In the January of this year he was in charge of dealing with a major mice mess up which happened at the Selfridges store in the Birmingham Bull Ring. Six dead mice had dropped from ducting in the buildings roof and landed in the middle of the food hall, close to the Noodle Bar. 

“Work is always booming.” stated Mr Marshal “When they built the Bull Ring they had to dig into underground tunnels and sewers, disturbing whole nests of mice, rats and other nasties who were lurking down there minding their own business. Because of this the whole city centre and the residential areas around it are dealing with pest problems. The Arcadian is bringing in a lot of business at the moment, perfect place for the mice to move to with so much food around for them.”

But according to the pest control company Birmingham will be dealing with it’s pest problem for a while yet due to the huge scale of the infestation and the large area that’s affected.

Rodent Fact File:

• Mice can squeeze through gaps as small as 6mm wide but they leave a tell-tale black grease smears behind from their fur on floors and walls.
• Mice only eat a tiny 3 grams of food a day.
• They will eat anything, and i mean anything! From soap to candle wax, but cereal is their favourite snack.
• They do around a whopping 80 droppings a day!
• Female mice can breed every 3 weeks and the average number of offspring is 10!
• There is no such thing as a grey mouse, if you have one of these hiding in your house chances are it’s a baby rat.
• Mice can carry diseases such as: Salmonella, Hantavirus or Lyme Disease.