When my husband, our son, Rory, then two, and I sold our terraced house in Ealing, London, to move to Oxfordshire, we were looking forward to being surrounded by green space and wildlife.
Ten years on, our family of three has become a family of four, and Rory and his brother, Seb, now nine, are fortunate to live in a village surrounded by fields. There’s space to ride their bikes and play football, and I never cease to be charmed by hearing the sound of woodpigeons in the morning, and the sight of a kite swooping overhead.
But one of the things I didn’t factor into the equation when we moved to the countryside was the pests! Small ones, big ones, from wasps and ants, to mice and birds, we’ve had them all infiltrate our house! Never did I think I’d be spending so much time googling how to pest-proof our home.
I first noticed signs of an intruder in my son’s bedroom as I was tucking him into bed one night and heard scratching. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of his bedroom wall. Looking out of his first-floor window to see the guttering and roof above, I assumed it was birds nesting and wasn’t overly bothered.
When the noise persisted, however, it stopped Rory from getting to sleep at night. Scouring the bedroom, there were no signs of pests in the room itself, but the sporadic scratching noise was impossible to ignore.
Having previously used a pest control person to help us get rid of a wasp’s nest in the eaves of the house, I gave him another call.
He conducted a thorough survey of the problem and explained that it was likely mice, especially as during autumn the temperature drop outside means mice seek warmth and food inside.
He suggested that they were probably entering the building through weep holes in the brickwork just below my son’s bedroom, and making their way up inside the wall cavity.
I didn’t know what weep holes were, but he showed me the small rectangular openings in the wall, between the bricks, which are put there during the building process to allow trapped moisture to escape and allow air to circulate.
My first thought was to get someone to fill them with cement, but he said that it was important not to do that because they’re vital for ventilation.
Instead, he recommended fitting weep hole covers, which I bought on Amazon for under £20. These allow moisture to escape and air to circulate, whilst also preventing pests from entering the building!
He also offered other suggestions for steps to take to keep mice out of the house and prevent them from bothering our bedrooms. For example, Amazon offers various Ultrasonic Plug-In Pest Repellers for around £20.
Our pest control expert explained that these emit ultrasonic and electromagnetic technology to repel all kinds of unwanted indoor wildlife, from crawling ones like mice and spiders, to flying ones like mosquitoes.
We fitted the metal weep hole covers, and I ordered the plug-ins. Within a week of installing the weep-hole covers and the plug-ins in my son’s bedroom, I was relieved to notice that the scratching stopped and the mice had been banished!
In addition to plugging one into each of our bedrooms, I also plug one in in the kitchen, too, as it’s a place where mice are likely to come, especially with two boys dropping food and crumbs all the time!
They’re super easy to use, and there’s a function that makes it safe to use if you have pets. We don’t, but it’s handy when our friends visit with their dogs. What I really like about them is that they’re chemical-free, and once plugged in, I can forget they’re there.
Having a house in the countryside means we feel lucky to be so close to nature, and we would never want to harm it. But now that we’ve found a humane way to banish pests from the bedroom, we all sleep better at night!
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