Case Studies

Badger Bother: A Case Study

“It looked like a ploughed field,” says Chas Wilson, remembering the scene that met him one morning, shortly after moving into his new home in rural Scot...

Bed Bugs: A Case Study

When Margie Frazer and her husband – both history-buffs and long-term Anglophiles – emigrated from their Ohio home to settle in rural Oxfordshire, they h...

Dealing With a Mice Infestation: A Case Study

If you’re moving into a new house, you generally expect to get vacant possession, but as 70-year-old Elizabeth Watkins found, when she moved into a Victori...

Developing an 'Eco-Friendly' Pesticide: A Case Study

From chewing holes in our clothes to devastating important crops, insects cause an incredible amount of damage around the globe, so it’s little wonder that...

How I Dealt With a Plague of Slugs: A Case Study

Slugs can be a pretty difficult foe to deal with at the best of times, but add two small children and a dog into the mix and the problem can become much wors...

Invaded by Ants: A Case Study

A toddler screams, and mum runs into the kitchen – to find a troupe of hungry ants passing underneath her youngster’s chair and inches away from his dang...

Living With Foxes: A Case Study

Even if you’re quite well disposed towards foxes, when pet rabbits are the love of your seven-year-old’s life, you’re hardly likely to want the canids...

Memories of a Rat Man: Case Study

“Environmental health operative?” Bill Percox laughs, “nah; not me! It’s all got a bit high falutin’ these days – when I joined I was a ‘counci...

Organic Pest Control in an Overgrown Garden: Case Study

You know when you take on an overgrown garden that turning the wilderness back into a tidy and attractive outdoor space is going to take a lot of time and ef...

Pheromones for Pollution-free Pest Control: A Case Study

India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and the contribution that agriculture makes to it is fast approaching 20 percent of the nation’...

Unexpected Benefits of a Wildlife Pond: Case Study

“It’s all Lizzie’s fault”, laughs Carol Mosley, “she was the one who badgered me into having the thing in the first place!” Lizzie is Carol’s 9...

Vine Weevils Tamed With Biological Control: A Case Study

“The first thing we noticed was perfectly healthy-looking plants just collapsing and dying,” recalls Fiona Sparkman. “We thought it was our fault at fi...