About
Half the time, the answer is you don’t need anyone.
That is not a sales line, it is the reason this site exists. A firm that sells callouts cannot profitably tell you the job is a bag of wire wool and an afternoon, so it does not. I can, because I sell nothing and take no referral fee for sending you anywhere. Where you genuinely do need a professional, this site says so just as plainly, and it says what the work should cost.
Why so many answers here end in “you don’t need anyone”
Because for a lot of what turns up in a British house, it is true. Woodlice cannot breed indoors and die in a dry room. Silverfish stop when the humidity does. House spiders are eating the insects you would mind more. Every one of those is a symptom, and the honest answer is to fix the condition rather than buy a spray. That is the lane a callout seller structurally cannot write, which is why you will struggle to find it written. Every page here starts from the same rule instead: find the way in or they come back.
- Pests only: what it is, how it got in, and what actually clears it.
- The way in first: if a treatment leaves the gap open, the page says so.
- Verdicts, not surveys of opinion: you leave each page knowing what to do next.
The bit where this stops being about money
On most home-repair subjects a wrong answer costs you a few hundred pounds. On this one it can put you in front of a magistrate, and that is the single biggest reason this site is written the way it is.
All UK bat species and their roosts are protected. So are wild birds and their active nests. Some rodenticides and pesticides may only be bought or applied by certified professional users, and a pesticide used in a way its approved label does not permit is an offence on its own. None of that is obvious from a search result, and a firm selling you a treatment has no particular reason to slow down and explain it.
So no page here will ever tell you to block a roost, clear an active nest, or reach for something you are not allowed to use. Where you might be near any of that, the page stops and says take advice first. It points at what applies and tells you to check it. It is not legal advice, and a confident summary of the law from a website is worth less than nothing.
Nobody pays for the answers
No pest-control company sponsors this site. Nobody has paid for an opinion on it. I do not do the work. I take no referral fee for sending you to someone who does. There is nothing to sell you at the end of a page. Where a product link ever earns me a commission, the page carrying it says so plainly, right where the link sits.
That is the only money here, and it buys nothing. No brand sees a page before it goes up, and none has any say over it.
Where every figure here comes from
Every page tells you what I would do in my own house, and nothing I would not. Every figure, price, legal restriction and timescale comes from a named source you can check: the legislation itself, government or HSE guidance, a published cost guide, a manufacturer's own label. And when the honest answer is "it depends", the page tells you what it depends on rather than pretending otherwise.
What this site won't tell you
That one spray fixes an infestation. What works depends entirely on what you have and where it is coming in. That you can identify everything from a photograph. Often you cannot. It is not legal advice, and it will not price your particular job. A page can tell you what a type of work costs and what moves that number. Anyone quoting your house without seeing it is guessing.
Who runs this site
This site is operated by That Guy, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ, United Kingdom.
That is on the page for a reason. Everything here touches health, money, or the law, and on the last of those a wrong answer can put you in front of a magistrate rather than just out of pocket. If a website is going to tell you what you may and may not do about an animal in your loft, you are entitled to know who is publishing it and where to find them. Plenty of pages on this subject will not tell you that.
There is no company behind this quoting for the work, because there is no work. If that ever changes, it will say so here first.
Got something you can't work out?
You have read this far, so it is still bothering you. Send it over. I cannot identify it from a message, but when other people are stuck on the same question, it gets a proper page on the site.
Ask me about it