New research from Pest-Stop has revealed which pests are causing the biggest problems in the UK, according to average monthly search volume figures.
The analysis examined 10 keyword phrases relating to 12 different pests, each given a score based on their search volume figure.
Once the scores were confirmed for each keyword, an average was taken for every pest across the 10 phrases and an overall average score was assigned to each.
Unsurprisingly, rats were top of the list, ranking number one for four of the 10 keyword phrases and never placing below fifth.
While there are varying reports of how many rats are native to the UK, it is widely thought that they outnumber humans two to one.
Bed bugs ranked in second place and are one of the most notoriously tricky pests to get rid of, because they can live for between four and six months without food.
With an estimated 5.5 million of them in the UK it’s no surprise mice rankly highly on the biggest pest problem list
John Stewart, part of the technical team at Pest-Stop, said: “It is no surprise at all that rats turned out to be the most searched for pests by people of the UK.
“Notoriously, they are the pest which causes the most problems given their ever-growing presence in the country and the fact that people need to deal with them straight away once they have an infestation.
“Should you get an infestation, there are lots of ways to deal with it humanely, such as multi-catch cages or indoor repellers, which omit sounds at a frequency which deters the rodents.”
Mr Stewart continued: “Bed bugs are perhaps a little more surprising in second place, but they can cause a lot of problems and be much harder to prevent from invading our homes.
“If the infestation is in the early stages, you might want to consider using a bed bug blitz kit which should deal with the problem quickly and efficiently.
“At the other end of proceedings, it was interesting to see garden pests like snails, foxes, slugs and moles placing in the bottom four indicating people are more concerned about pests invading their homes.
“That’s not to say those pests don’t cause many problems with moles digging up gardens and slugs destroying plants, but it makes sense that dealing with them are slightly lower down in terms of priority.”