Pest Control In A Flat Or A Block
The hardest part is rarely the pest. It is that the part of the building causing it is not yours.
Why blocks are different
One Structure, Many Occupiers
North Kent has a great deal of flatted housing - purpose-built blocks in Erith, Gravesend and Dartford, and large Victorian houses divided into flats in Margate, Ramsgate, Tunbridge Wells and Dover. Both have the same underlying problem.
The things that generate and sustain an infestation are mostly communal: the bin store, the refuse chute, the service risers, the roof void, the cellar, the car park and the landscaping. A leaseholder or tenant controls none of them.
Meanwhile the routes between flats are structural - the soil stack, the floor void, the ceiling void, the riser cupboard - so a problem in one flat is rarely only in one flat.
What you can do yourself
Your Own Front Line
More than people think, and it is worth doing whatever happens about the communal parts:
- seal around pipework under the sink and behind the bath panel
- close the gap where the soil stack passes through the floor
- fit a brush strip to the front door if there is a gap
- seal around the boiler flue and any extractor
- check the kitchen plinth void and the cupboard the services run through
On a lot of flats that is enough on its own, because the flat stops being the easy option even if the block still has a population.
Getting the communal parts dealt with
The Written Finding
This is the whole article in one paragraph. A managing agent can act on a documented maintenance item far more readily than on a complaint from one resident. A phone call saying "we have mice" competes with everything else in their inbox. A dated report saying what was found, where, what the likely source is and what needs to happen in the common parts is a work order waiting to be raised.
We will provide that on any job in a block, at no extra charge, and it can be addressed to you so you can forward it.
If the block is council or housing association managed, the same document is what gets it logged as a block issue rather than a single-flat complaint, which is the difference between it being fixed and being treated repeatedly.
Who pays
The General Shape Of It
General information rather than legal advice, and the lease always governs.
Typically: inside the flat is the leaseholder's, or the landlord's if it is let and the cause is structural. The common parts and the structure are the freeholder's, funded through the service charge. Waste management is usually the freeholder's arrangement, and misuse of it is everybody's problem.
Where a block has a recurring problem, a contract held by the freeholder covering the communal areas is far cheaper across the building than each flat paying separately for treatments that keep being undone. That argument is often best made with the written findings from two or three flats in hand.
Common Questions
Can you treat just my flat?
Yes, and proof the openings inside it. If the source is communal we will say so in writing so you can take it to the agent.
The managing agent is not responding.
Send them the written finding rather than a description. A dated report naming the source is something they can raise as a maintenance item.
Who pays for the bin store?
Normally the freeholder, through the service charge. The lease governs it, and a written finding is what gets it started.
Going further
Advice Worth Reading First
What Happens On A First Visit
Nobody enjoys booking this. Here is exactly what it involves, so there are no surprises on the day.
Read more ›What It Costs, And What Changes It
One published price, and an honest account of why everything else is quoted instead of listed.
Read more ›Pests In A Rented Home: Who Is Responsible?
General information rather than legal advice, and the short answer is that it usually turns on how they got in.
Read more ›Pest Control And Your Food Hygiene Rating
The treatment is half of it. The paperwork is the half that gets scored.
Read more ›Preparing For A Treatment
Some of this genuinely changes the result. Some of it just saves time. Both are worth doing.
Read more ›Which Trade Does What
We would rather tell you it is somebody else’s job than take the money and leave you with it.
Read more ›One-Off Treatment Or A Contract?
Contracts suit some premises and are a waste of money for others. Here is the honest test.
Read more ›Wildlife Law, And What Cannot Be Treated
Some of the things people ring about are protected, and a firm that offers to deal with them anyway is offering to break the law on your behalf.
Read more ›Pests When Buying Or Selling A House
It comes up more often than people expect, usually at the worst possible moment in the chain.
Read more ›Get A Free Quote
Tell us your postcode and what you are seeing. We will come back with a time and a fixed price before anything is booked.
Local Experts You Can Trust
Fast, effective, affordable pest control for homes and businesses across the whole of Kent. Fully qualified technicians, fixed prices, every service guaranteed.