Lion Pest Control Ltd

22/11/2024

It probably wasn't the best day to be digging a trench around a park home with the frozen ground but the show must go on. This is to stop mice digging under the cladding and gnawing all the pipe lagging and nesting in the floor insulation which is ruining it. The customer was considering permanent baiting but prevention is always better than cure.

16/10/2024

It wasn't the nicest day in Devon to be crawling around under the decking but where there is a will there is a way. My customer kindly made me a hole which I told him must be 27cm wide for me to fit through 😁. Despite being soaked and covered in dirt I was happy to find where the rats are getting in, the very common hole around the foul waste pipe. I will mesh this up once I have reduced the number of rats inside. Getting rid of the rats is only a small part of the job, fixing the entrance point is a vital part of the job otherwise they will just be back again next autumn. He was very amused at the state of me as I came out from under the decking so he took this picture as a keep sake 😂.

29/07/2024

We find wasp nests in all sorts of places but the wheel arch of a car is an unusual one. The poor driver had been badly stung after parking the car and thought the nest must be in the hedge but turns out they were driving it around 😬

30/07/2023

Asian Hornets (Vespa velutina) have been found recently in Devon. There are reports of an Asian hornet nest near Plymouth which has been destroyed. Asian hornets are not native to the UK and pose a significant threat to our wildlife. They are predators of honey bees and other bee species. There are serious concerns about the impact these insects could have on our bee species which are vital for our ecosystem so please remain vigilant for them and report any sightings. Sightings can be reported either through an app (search Asian hornet watch) or to the non native species Directorate (https://risc.brc.ac.uk/alert.php?species=asian_hornet). Please be aware they do not pose more of a risk to human health than our native wasps and hornets.

24/01/2023

You never know what you are going to find: This property had current noises in the floor and historical evidence of rats and mice in the loft but none of the pieces of the puzzle as to what was currently making the noise added up properly. After digging around for quite a while I managed to find some unsual droppings for a loft but even I questioned my dropping identification skills as I could not believe it, it wasn't rat, mouse, bat or squirrel the usual suspects for lofts. This called for a bit of motion camera trapping to see what exactly was going on. After a few nights a mouse turned up and I began to think I had been wrong but then I got this footage, a weasel. The droppings looked like they were stoat or weasel but I've never found one regularly visiting a loft. Needless to say the mouse was not seen again. Weasels are excellent free 24/7, 365 days a year pest control and vicious predictors of rats and mice, given the history of the property it is definitely a benefit to have a residential weasel keeping the unwanted rodent visitors in check. When stoats or weasels turn up at any of my rodents sites I know my work there is done as they are the world best rodent catchers. Was a lovely find and my customer was happy to take no further action and keep their new tenant. Almost ten years in pest control and it is nice to still get surprises.

08/01/2023

If anyone is having an issues with 's*x mad super mice' (insert mild chuckle) as reported by the daily star please get in touch. Don't worry the article is missing some key elements of rodent control, namely mouse control is not only about rodentacides, we are expert mouse proofers to keep the little blighters out in the first place and not all rodentacides are anticoagulants. Some of the most effective and environmentally friendly rodentacides are not anticoagulants and have no known resistance. Plus sometimes you can't beat an expertly positioned snap trap 😁

British homes are under invasion from Spanish mice that are impossible to poison and love s*x. The new breed, a hybrid between the British and Spanish mouse has now been found in the UK for the first time

18/10/2022

We get rid of rats faster than Kwasi Kwarteng's time in office 😂 ,

30/06/2022

Having outgrown their current residence an extension was underway. This was not agreeable to the local honey bee colony concerned that with the every increasing numbers a honey robbery was being planned by the new wasp residents. They had no choice but to report the illegal build. On investigation it was discovered that a planning application for change of use from birds to wasps had not been submitted and as such the current squatters were evacuated.
A beautiful picture shared with us by one of our customers. Wasp season is well and truly in full swing.

23/06/2022

Wasp season is well and truly upon us. This time of year the wasps seem fairly peaceful but come late summer when fruit is ripe on the trees the wasps get a taste for sugar. The mix of sugar and fermented fruit sends them into a frenzy making them more likely to sting and subsequently making having a cider in the garden on a warms summers evening an unpleasant experience. The switch to fruit in the late summer, creating these tanked up agressive wasps, is associated with when the queen stops laying eggs. Worker wasps cannot digest their food and instead chew up foraged food and feed it to the larvae in the nest who in return secrete a sugary substance the worker wasps drink as their food source. Without the larvae worker wasps are forced to live on the sugars of fermenting fruit and your cider. So with no larvae to feed there is nothing to do but get a bit pi**ed and try to steal the jam off your toast 😬

04/05/2022

Rat behaviour: Rats have a lot of interesting behaviours and characteristics. One in particular that ensures pest controllers need to work hard is neophobia, a fear of new things. Rats are very much creatures of habit. They like to move along familiar routes to a familiar food source and any changes in the environment they are fearful of. Placing down a rat box, even though it contains food, is often met with caution by local rats who will happily ignore it and continoue to their established food source they know is safe such as a bird feeder. I mean why change the habit of a lifetime if it's been working out so well for you. In this video we see two rats who look like they are egging eachother on to be brave enough to go inside. In the other video one rat is showing great courage stretching out to sniff the rat box. This particular rat box they never did pluck up the courage to enter. Although this behaviour helps rats survive and can make treating a rat problem very complex it can also be their downfall. Their love of the same route often ends up leaving a trail making it easier to find where they live and travel and allowing you to target your treatment along little rat highways where the rats are more likely to feel comfortable and travel frequently. Restricting their food source is also vital in helping them pluck up the courage to try something new. These are all things pest controllers are looking for to ensure a successful treatment as a rat box in the wrong location may never get results. This is not one of our rat boxes but the footage was shared with us by a member of the public and we thought it was a nice example of neophobia

19/02/2022

Please be aware that due to storm eunice we are having ongoing issues with our phone line. Please either WhatsApp us (link is on the website www.lionpestcontrol.co.uk) or email [email protected]. We hope everyone is safe and well and apologize for any inconvenience.

Highly trained Pest Detectives offering effective and reliable Pest Control treatments and Unique cost effective Subscriptions. Devon based for a Rapid Response

12/02/2022

Lion Pest Control is happy to announce we are stocking and using a new rodenticide which takes environmental protection to a new level. All skilled pest controllers can target their rodenticides so that only rats consume it. This is essential to protect non targets like voles and mice from accessing the poison. This is part of the skill involved in being an environmentally concerned pest controller, you are not paying for strong poison you are paying for the skill to use it correctly minimizing the risk to the environment while still controlling the problem. The risk with these treatments is always the contaminated rodent bodies which may be consumed by birds of prey or scavengers and we always do regular visits to check and remove contaminated rodent bodies but although this risk can be reduced it remains a risk. The new Bayer Harmonix rodenticide, which has a different mode of action, is non persistent and non bioaccumulative. This is an excellent move forward in the world of pest control. With the skill to target the bait only on rats and a rodenticide which is non persistent in the rodent bodies we look forward to a more environmentally friendly future. Despite this non lethal methods of control must always be considered such as reducing your pest risk through sealing up holes and the correct management of food sources. Looks like we got this owls attention