Are There Vermin in Your Shed?
“Vermin” is a word that can lead to arguments. One family’s vermin is another’s delightful wildlife. It is, perhaps, the equivalent of “weed” in horticulture.
When it comes to rats in shed, you will need to exercise a certain amount of discrimination. Wasps are finally being recognised as beneficial, as they are pollinators and they also prey upon small insects that are known to damage plants. However, they do defend their nests, so need to be given space. If you have small children in your family, wasps might not be the ideal neighbours, so you should try to keep them out of your shed, if you possibly can. They will get through quite small holes in wooden walls, and can bore their way through the last few millimetres if necessary. They use wood to make their ingenious and beautiful nests, so nothing is wasted. If you do get a wasps nest in your shed, and it is likely to be dangerous, you will have to resort to chemicals to kill the wasps. Prevention is better than cure; stop them getting into the shed in the first place. They prefer dark and damp places for their nests, so good ventilation and light help to deter them.
Rats and mice are all right in their place, but their place is not your shed. If they get in, they will make nests, they will breed at an astonishing rate, and they will do serious damage. They can start fires by gnawing on the insulation on electrical cables, which has a taste they enjoy. They will certainly eat any bulbs or seeds you are storing for the warm Spring days if they can get to them, and they will use paper, which they will shred, to line their nests. That might not seem to matter, until you find it was the guarantee for the new lawn mower, which stubbornly refuses to start.
How do you stop & prevent rats in shed?
Look for any holes, even small ones, and repair them if you can. A wasp only needs three millimetres, so you may find yourself replacing window and door frames, which are always the first places to show signs of aging. A hole in the wall at ground level is asking for trouble; if you can poke a pencil through it, a mouse can get in, and probably will. A rat will find that same hole, and enlarge it overnight. You could nail a piece of plywood over it, but both animals will, having laid eyes on your shed, scout around for another point of entry. Crawling around on your hands and knees with a torch while somebody inside the shed watches for the beam of light is the best way to find existing holes, but it is by no means fool-proof.
Wooden sheds are fine, if they are relatively new, and in excellent condition. But once they start to show signs of age, and of even normal wear and tear, they will not be vermin proof for very much longer.
A shed from C & S Sheds will be free of vermin for as long as you remember to close the doors and windows at night. Constructed of PVC coated steel panels, they will defeat the powerful teeth of even the most determined rat, and as the shed will have been erected by experienced professionals on its galvanised steel frame there will be no gaps to allow wasps to scout out your shed as a potential home.
When you replace the contents of your old shed into your smart new C & S shed, you will not need the wasp killer chemicals, nor even the stuff designed to deter ants. Dispose of them carefully, according to the instructions. As for the rat and mouse traps, do any of your neighbours still have wooden sheds? They might be glad of them.
But don’t gloat.