And that is where I find myself today. My local pest control technician is coming out to investigate my loft. He assured me if there are rats or mice up there, he will be able to smell them. Which is just as well, as being a rhinitis sufferer, my sense of smell is non-existent. Of course, he did suggest it could be squirrels, which wouldn’t be quite so bad.

In fact, that brings me onto the question, which pest (if you HAD to have one in your loft) would you prefer: bats, rats, mice or squirrels? Well, my husband and I both agreed, we would much prefer bats to rodents. Of course I know that in the UK they are legally protected and it is a criminal offence if you:

1. Deliberately capture, injure or kill a bat.
2. Intentionally or recklessly disturb a bat in its roost or deliberately disturb a group of bats.
3. Damage or destroy a bat roosting place (even if bats are not occupying the roost at the time).
4. Possess or advertise/sell/exchange a bat (dead or alive) or any part of a bat.
5. Intentionally or recklessly obstruct access to a bat roost.

My living nightmare started two nights ago, when we first heard scurrying noises in the part of the loft, directly above our master bedroom. If you had to choose a nice sound to lull you to sleep, it is often dolphin music or something similar from mother nature, instead we had to contend with scratching noises and the pitter-patter of feet running in the loft void above our heads. It certainly was not calming!

Of course, my husband and I are now trying to work out how the pest – whatever it will turn out to be – gained access into our property in the first place.

Possible access points for pests:

1 – Air vents: we do have several air vents in the outside bricks of our house and we have never had them void-filled – ooops!

2 – Roof: we have never checked very closely to see if there are any small holes in the roof, which could provide access. My husband has been up there on the ladder to clear the gutters once a year but that is it. I smugly pointed out to him that actually a mouse can squeeze through a hole no bigger than a biro – as fascinating as this fact may be, it certainly did not help move our discussion along!

3 – Adjoining property: always easier to blame someone else for your problem, but the fact is even if you have defended your home against pests to a military standard, if your adjoining neighbour’s property has not done the same, pests could gain access to your home through theirs!

4 – Bird feeders – I have complained about this before. Our neighbour feeds the birds regularly but not just by leaving food on the bird table but also by throwing bread onto the grass – I know this can encourage the local vermin. Although not directly to blame for pests in my house, they certainly increase the potential risk factor!

So, I suppose the lesson here is not to become complacent. Just because I have been able to educate myself on common pests and pest control by working in this industry for the past four years, does not mean I should not practice what I preach.

Anyway, let’s see what my friendly exterminator finds in my loft later today. Will keep you posted folks!

Are There Rats or Mice in My Loft? is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog

It’s not just in work that I have this problem. Recently I was searching the big wide web on Florence (the city – and my honeymoon destination) when on the first page of Google there were results for Florence & the Machine (music band) – not what I was after. Do you get my point?

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) becomes that much more difficult when search engines throw up results for pest associated terms that are actually nothing to do with pest control (e.g. The Rat Pack – mentioned in a previous blog post, Wasps Rugby Club, etc.), which means that:

a) we have greater competition to appear high up in the results and

b) it is more difficult for potential customers to find & visit our website and take advantage of our services.

The aim of SEO is to make your site as clear and as relevant as possible to what people are searching for when they want your products and services. This will help results of your site to appear higher up on a results page (ideally on page 1 – most people don’t tend to look further on) than other less relevant websites and thus hopefully encourage people to click through to your website.

Quick example about ants. When people search using the term ‘ants’ they could be a school student doing some research for homework or a fan of “Adam & the Ants” and either way, we (as Rentokil) cannot compete with the millions of results a term like ‘ants’ or ‘ant’ can produce on the internet. We have to be smarter than that!

We research what terms people actually use to find our site and tailor our relevant web page to those particular key terms/ phrases so there is a much higher probability that a Rentokil ad appears near the top of the search page. There are various tools to help us do this. We then ensure that we tailor our webpage to meet the demands of what people are looking for when they want a service like ours with this and other keywords identified.

Unfortunately this exercise will constantly need to be repeated and reviewed as people (and our competitors) get more search savvy and if we continue to have people, films, tv, music bands, etc. jumping on the (pest) band wagon – if you know what I mean.

And so, my SEO battle continues……

SEO And Me Against The World is a post from: deBugged - The Rentokil Blog