An army of rats is on the march across cities, towns and villages all over the UK. Largely blamed on the introduction of fortnightly refuse ...
The problem is the introduction of fortnightly refuse collections and residents being urged to compost household waste food. In addition, milder winters as well as al fresco food scraps left by the public for them to feast on is compounding the problem of rodent infestations across the UK.
Business in rat-catching has soared by 75 per cent in the past year with rats becoming the public's major pest.
So far this year, SDA Pest Control have trapped and destroyed 800 rats at homes and business premises across Cambridgeshire, including contracts in Peterborough and Cambridge, and business is booming. That figure is doubled when you take into account the number of rodents destroyed by poison.
Rats are also colonising homes and even gnawing on cables, wood and property in lofts where they are also breeding. A single female rat can produce 200 off-spring in a year and the last estimate was there are 60 million rats in the UK or equivalent to one for every person.
And there are chilling tales to be told: one woman in St. Neots was enjoying a bath when a rat actually appeared out of the toilet having swum around the U-bend. At another house in the town a woman reported a scratching sound in her ceiling and he found the culprit was a family of rats in residence in the ceiling void. At a terrace of houses in Chatteris the rats infested every roof having got into one of the houses through the cavity wall.
It is frightening what is happening and people should be aware of how they can help reduce the problem that is becoming an epidemic. The problem is spreading all over the UK and we are dealing with calls from Cambridge, St. Ives, St. Neots, Peterborough, Godmanchester and Ramsey. Nowhere is immune from rats.
We have never been so busy and during the past year business has boomed because the rats are being given the perfect environment to thrive in. Rats burrow into compost heaps and are nourished by the rotting food. Food is tossed away in the streets and plastic dustbin bags are easy for rats to get into. We are making life a luxury for rats and it will just get worse unless people take precautions.
It is imperative that food is not thrown out for composting, make sure dustbin bags are secure in bins and not overflowing next to your home or on the street, and check your house for damage to brickwork that give rats easy access to homes.
Rats were always assumed to be nocturnal. Now they seem to be active all through the day. They are very intelligent and know where to find sources of food and we are helping them thrive. Unless we take positive action the population of the brown rat will continue to expand at alarming rates.
Rats might be clearing up the rubbish the public leaves out but it is what the rat leaves behind that is most disturbing with their urine and decaying bodies leaving the prospect of diseases being passed on to humans.
For centuries rats have claimed their place in history none more so than when they were blamed for causing the Black Death, a pandemic between 1347 and 1351 that killed an estimated 75 million people.
SDA Pest Control, "Long Acre",
Bluntisham Road,
Needingworth,
St. Ives,
Cambridgeshire
01480 465684