Google is no stranger to invasions, with the tech giant being plagued by everything from complaints to lawsuits, hackers to AI. It's now facing a very different kind of invasion, with some furry friends setting up shop at the company's $1 billion United Kingdom headquarters.
While Google has been constructing a so-called 'landscraper' since 2018, there's a potential setback due to some unexpected visitors. The massive building is set to tower 11 stories above the London skyline as the company's UK base of operations, and with it housing 7,000 employees, it's the eighth-biggest building in Europe in terms of office space.
As reported by The Guardian, Google's King's Cross headquarters is currently battling against a skulk (the name for a group of foxes) that's calling the tech hub its new home.
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With the top of the building being a luscious roof garden, one source familiar with construction has told the outlet how the foxes are causing havoc by digging burrows into the gardens: "There’s a little hole in the garden where one lives. We’ve seen her all around the building – one second she’s on the fifth floor, the next she’s on the garden floor. No one has been able to catch her."
Others claim they've seen fox excrement around the grounds of the brand-new building that's currently unoccupied.
According to Mosh Latifi, a co-director of pest control firm EcoCare, the foxes could be living off rats. London is known for its high population of rats, as well as its opportunistic foxes: "Foxes thrive quite well on rodents – we don’t live more than three metres away from the nearest rat."
Latifi says that foxes have been seen picking up food that's left behind by workers, while another anonymous pest control expert suggested leaky pipes and food from local businesses could be helping sustain the animals: "London is a big playground for foxes – they will go absolutely anywhere."
For those questioning how the foxes get up there, it doesn't sound like they took an Uber helicopter to the roof of the Google HQ.
The news of the foxes was first reported by the London Centric newsletter, writing: "The contractors managing the final fit out of the new Google building in King's Cross are having to deal with a 'skulk' of foxes (apparently that is the collective noun). I'm told the foxes colonized the building in the early stages when it was still quite accessible and are now living on the top floor which is like a small park."
With the average lifespan of a red fox being three to four years, there are questions about whether the mother made it up there in the early days and has simply become marooned by surviving on the birds and rodents that the park is designed to attract. Alternatively, the skulk has easy access to the ground floor and is able to come and go as it pleases.