Pest control in Longsight

What are Longsight’s homes actually like?

Picture Longsight and most people see long rows of red-brick terraces, and there are plenty of those. The 2021 census fills in the rest: across the ward, semi-detached houses slightly outnumber terraces, about one household in eight lives in a purpose-built flat, and smaller numbers live in bedsits, shared houses or flats tucked into commercial buildings on the main roads. Head west into the leafy streets people call Westpoint and the houses get noticeably bigger, many of them Victorian, while the southern end has grand villas looking out over Crowcroft Park.

The ward also grew from roughly 17,600 residents in 2011 to almost 20,900 in 2021, close to a fifth more people in largely the same streets. More people in the same streets means more cooking, more rubbish and more doors opening, which is the backdrop to most pest problems here.

Why does a mouse problem travel along a terrace?

Red-brick terraces like Longsight’s were built in long runs, and the voids beneath the floorboards, the gaps behind skirting and the spaces around chimney breasts often connect one house to the next. Lofts aren’t always fully divided either. Mice treat the whole row as one building, which is why a tidy household can still hear scratching behind the kitchen units when the nest is actually two doors down.

Autumn is when it ramps up. As the nights turn cold, mice and rats go looking for warm shelter, and figures published this month put rodent-control enquiries in Manchester up by about a quarter on last year. In a terrace, we don’t just set a few traps and leave. We find where the mice are getting in, usually around pipes under the sink, behind the cooker and through gaps at floor level, and block those with materials they can’t chew through. If the trouble clearly starts next door, we’ll say so. Our mice control page covers the visits in more detail.

Why might rats turn up in a Longsight back yard?

Rats need water and cover, and there’s more of both round here than the busy streets suggest. The Gore Brook flows from Droylsden past Gorton Reservoir towards Platt Fields Park, slipping in and out of culverts along the way, and two of the streams that feed it are called the Crowcroft Brook and the Levenshulme Road Brook. Buried watercourses and the old sewers beside them give brown rats long, quiet routes under the city.

The railway is the other big feature. Longsight’s main electric depot was first built in 1842 and is now one of the largest in the country, with space for 179 carriages, and there are two further depots in the area. All those sidings and sheds sit among streets of family homes, and households close to rail land sometimes spot rats in yards and gardens.

Building work stirs things up too. On Levenshulme Road, 37 homes for social rent went up on neglected brownfield land and were completed in October 2025, while on Stockport Road an old spice factory was demolished for a scheme of 96 homes. When old foundations and drains are dug out, the rats living in them move on, sometimes to the shed or decking next door. Most rats that get inside a house here come through a damaged drain or a gap around a waste pipe, and our rat control page explains how we track that down. In a rented house, the drain repair is normally for the landlord to arrange.

Flats over the Stockport Road and Dickenson Road shops

Longsight’s main shopping area spreads out from where Stockport Road meets Dickenson Road, with supermarkets, grocers, fresh-produce shops and a long run of Pakistani takeaways and restaurants. The census found several dozen households across the ward whose flat is part of a shop or other commercial building. A flat sitting over a busy kitchen stays warm, and it’s joined to the business below by drains and service ducts. Cockroaches use those links, and good housekeeping upstairs only goes so far when the source is downstairs.

Treating your flat on its own still makes a real difference, and we’ll do it thoroughly, but lasting results usually mean dealing with the building as a whole. We’ll give you a short written summary of what we found to pass to your landlord or managing agent, and our cockroach removal page for Longsight explains how those jobs run. If you run one of those shops yourself, we look after small food businesses too, fitting visits round your trading hours.

Shared houses, student neighbours and second-hand finds

Bed bugs aren’t a sign of a dirty home. They hitch rides in luggage, bedding and furniture, so they turn up wherever beds and bags change hands. Longsight has a modest number of bedsits and shared or converted houses, and even Slade Hall on Slade Lane, an Elizabethan manor house, had been split into shared rooms for 14 residents by the time it was auctioned in 2002. Next door in Victoria Park, University of Manchester halls sit among rented houses, so there’s always plenty of moving in and out close by.

The second-hand market on Dickenson Road, held on Tuesdays and Thursdays, is a handy way to furnish a room without spending much. Whatever you buy second-hand, from there or anywhere else, check the seams of mattresses, the joints of bed frames and the underside of sofas before they come indoors.

Fleas are the other pest that follows tenancies. If a previous occupant had a cat or dog, flea pupae can lie dormant in carpets for months and hatch once new people move in and start walking about. Bites around the ankles in your first fortnight in a new home are the classic sign, and our flea removal page explains how we treat it.

Renting in Longsight: who should sort it?

Where pests are getting in through broken drains, gaps in the structure or other disrepair, putting it right normally sits with the landlord. If you own or manage a rental here, we’re happy to arrange access with your tenant and send you a short report afterwards.

Children and pets in the house

With more than three people to a household on average across the ward, homes here are busy, so we plan each visit around who lives there. In a terrace with a back yard, any rodent bait goes into locked, tamper-resistant boxes fixed in place outside, and indoors we lean on traps hidden behind kickboards and inside cupboards. In a flat with no outdoor space, treatments stay in cupboards, voids and the backs of appliances. We’ll ask about babies, pregnancy, asthma, pets and fish tanks first, and tell you plainly if a room needs to stay empty for a while.

Getting to you

Longsight sits right beside Levenshulme and Rusholme, where the terraced streets look much like these, and Stockport Road carries us straight through the middle. Tell us your street and what you’ve spotted, and we’ll give you the earliest appointment we can.