Pest control in Saint-Paul-de-Vence

Built environment and local building types

Perched on its spur, Saint-Paul-de-Vence encircles its medieval lanes within a belt of ramparts, above hills streaked with dry-stone walls. The old stone-built fabric stacks vaulted cellars, rock-cut storerooms and attics linked by thick walls riddled with cavities. Art galleries, restaurants and lodgings occupy historic volumes with old floors and tangled networks. Outside, the terraces and dry-stone retaining walls, laid without mortar, structure the tiered gardens. These countless cavities, open joints and masonry voids offer permanent shelters and passages to small wildlife.

Seasonal pressures and sentinel species in Saint-Paul-de-Vence

The dry-stone walls shelter the black rat (Rattus rattus) and the house mouse (Mus musculus), which exploit masonry voids and reach cellars and storerooms in autumn. Bats, strictly protected species, colonise attics and vaulted cellars: their presence falls under wildlife regulations and rules out any treatment, in favour of exclusion work carried out outside the birthing season. Wasps and hornets nest in the crevices of the ramparts from June to October. Finally, the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) roams joints and terraces throughout the summer.