Rodent Control
A rodent in a production area, a warehouse or a kitchen is a stop-work problem and an audit problem on the same day. Shield surveys, proofs, monitors and treats to the CRRU Code, and documents every step as it happens.
What Happens
A technician establishes what the animal is, how it is getting in, and what is keeping it there. That means following the evidence rather than the sighting: droppings, smears, gnawing, runs, burrows, drainage defects and the gap under a door that has been there for years. Proofing and exclusion come first, because a building that is open will be reinfested however good the treatment was.
Monitoring goes in before anything toxic does, using non-toxic blocks, traps and monitors at numbered points, so the activity is mapped before it is treated. Rodenticide is used only where the assessment justifies it, in tamper-resistant boxes, to the CRRU Code, and it is removed and recorded at the end of the treatment rather than left in place. Every visit produces a report, and on a contracted site it is in the portal before the technician leaves.
Where They Get In
A mouse needs a gap the width of a pencil and a rat needs one the width of a thumb. These are the six that account for most of what we find. If you want to check your own site first, our guide to the signs of a rodent infestation walks through the evidence.
Defective drain runs, open interceptors & redundant pipework are the commonest route into an older commercial building, and the one nobody surveys.
Worn brush seals, warped shutters, propped fire doors and loading bay gaps. The cheapest fix on the list and the most frequently ignored.
Cables, pipes and ducts through walls and floors, sealed with expanding foam that a rat chews through in an evening.
Rats climb. Missing tiles, open eaves, overhanging branches and gutter runs put them into a roof space without touching the ground.
Goods-in bays, bin compounds, pallet stacks and vegetation against the wall. Harbourage and food, six feet from the door.
Suspended ceilings, cavity walls, service risers and equipment plinths, where mice in particular live and breed without ever crossing an open floor.
How We Work
Exclusion is the only permanent answer. Everything else manages a population that the building is still inviting in.
Non-toxic monitoring at numbered points shows where the activity actually is. Baiting a guess wastes a visit and teaches you nothing.
Trapping and exclusion carry most of the work. Rodenticide is used to the CRRU Code where the risk assessment justifies it, and removed at the end.
Species, locations, evidence, products, quantities and recommendations, mapped to the site plan. On contracted sites it is in Insectram before the technician leaves.
CRRU and Stewardship
Professional rodenticide use in the UK sits under the CRRU Code of Best Practice and the stewardship regime that came with it, and Shield works to both. In practice that means three things on your site. Rodenticide is used against an identified, assessed infestation rather than as a precaution, so no one leaves bait out on the chance something turns up.
Where bait is used it goes in tamper-resistant boxes at recorded points, is checked at every visit, and is removed and recorded when the treatment ends. And permanent baiting, meaning toxic bait left down indefinitely, is only justifiable in specific documented circumstances rather than as a default, which matters because an auditor who finds unjustified permanent bait will raise it. Non-target risk is the reason behind all of it: owls, raptors, foxes and pets eat poisoned rodents, and secondary poisoning is the outcome the Code exists to prevent.
Commercial Rodent Control
A warehouse is the hardest rodent environment there is: high racking, constant vehicle movement, doors open by design, pallets of food-grade stock and a perimeter that backs onto open ground. Shield runs perimeter-led programmes on sites like these: external control at the boundary so the pressure never reaches the building, defined internal inspection routes, numbered and mapped points, and proofing raised as fabric work rather than as a repeated observation. Under BRCGS, SALSA, Red Tractor and AIB the evidence expectation is the same: a current site plan, trend analysis of the readings, and corrective actions closed out. A single rodent sighting is not the non-conformance. An open recommendation twelve months old is.
Identification
Rats are neophobic, meaning suspicious of anything new in their environment, so a new bait box or trap can sit untouched for days, and a treatment that is not given time reads as a failure when it is simply working slowly. Mice are the opposite: inquisitive, constantly sampling, moving a few metres from harbourage, which makes them easy to catch and very hard to clear, because a floor plan of mice is dozens of small populations rather than one. Rats generally come in at or below ground through drainage and defects, mice live in the fabric and breed in it. The proofing is different, the monitoring density is different and the expectations are different. If you already know which you have, tell us when you call and we will send somebody expecting it.
Domestic
Rats in a loft, mice behind a kitchen unit and activity in the drains are what householders call us about. The job runs the same way: find the route in, close it, monitor, and treat only what needs treating.
Most domestic rodent problems are a building problem: a defective drain, an open eaves course, a gap around a soil pipe, and treating without finding that is an annual invoice rather than a fix.
Shop-bought bait laid without proofing usually moves the problem into a cavity, where the animal dies somewhere you cannot reach, which is its own separate call-out two weeks later.
AI Pest Management
Rodent pressure is seasonal, directional and specific to a part of a building, and none of that is visible in a folder of visit sheets. In Insectram every point is numbered and mapped, every reading is tied to a location and a date, and the trend analysis shows which elevation is under pressure and when. It turns a vague sense that goods-in keeps getting mice into a dated, mapped case for the fabric work that fixes it, and it puts the evidence in front of an auditor without anyone assembling it the week before.
Areas We Cover
Based in Selby, Shield covers commercial and domestic property across Yorkshire, the Humber and the North of England. Independent since 2002, BPCA registered, CRRU compliant, £10m public liability, 24-hour emergency response.
Tell us what you have seen and where. If it is a commercial site, tell us what is stored and what you are audited against. A Shield technician or field biologist will survey it properly and tell you what it takes to deal with it.
A: Only where the assessment justifies it, and never as the first move. Proofing, trapping and non-toxic monitoring carry most of the work on most sites. Where rodenticide is used it goes into tamper-resistant boxes at recorded points, under the CRRU Code of Best Practice, and it is removed and recorded when the treatment ends rather than left down indefinitely. That matters for non-target wildlife and pets, and it matters for your audit.
A: A straightforward mouse problem in a house is usually a treatment and two follow-ups. An established rat population with a drainage defect behind it takes as long as the drain takes, because until that is fixed you are managing rather than clearing. On a commercial site the honest answer comes after the survey, and it will separate what we can resolve from what needs fabric work by you. We would rather tell you that at the start than at visit six.
A: Not as a default. Permanent baiting means toxic bait left down indefinitely, and it is only justifiable in specific, documented circumstances rather than as a standing arrangement. An auditor who finds unjustified permanent bait will raise it. What does sit permanently on most commercial sites is non-toxic monitoring: the same numbered boxes and points, checked at every visit, giving you the same early warning without the rodenticide.
