Council cutbacks will have a knock-on effect in homes and businesses across Carmarthenshire as people seek DIY methods to treat pe...
Case Studies
Wales is facing an explosion in rat and insect numbers as councils cut pest control services.
The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) has raised concerns about the growing number of local authorities either ending their in-house pest control services or contracting them out to private firms. Many Welsh councils have also introduced charges for their in-house pest control services.
The CIEH said the number of calls to pest control services fall by up to 50% when people have to pay.
Julie Barratt, director of CIEH Wales, said: "There is plenty of evidence to show rat and mice numbers are going up and could well be in part because people don't want to pay for these services. Instead of paying, they try to treat the problem themselves by going to the hardware store. Often they don't make a good job of it or simply move the problem somewhere else. While this may work in the short term, in the long term it gives us a bigger pest population."
"We are seeing explosions in pest numbers and new populations are becoming established which can be very difficult to sort out. Councils are looking to save money and pest control is an obvious thing to cut because there's a whole private industry dealing with it, but not necessarily at prices that people can afford."
"Pest control goes back to the very beginning of public health. I think it would be a very retrograde step to go back to a system where we say look after yourself and don't see the bigger picture."
She added the number of bedbug infestations is also rising as a result of a number of factors, including the up-cycling phenomenon; the sale of goods on websites such as eBay and people returning from foreign holidays inadvertently carrying the minute pests.
A survey for the CIEH's national pest advisory panel revealed 10% of councils in Wales and England no longer provide a pest control service, compared to just 1% in 2002.
The survey also revealed there have been cutbacks in staff training in councils which continue to provide an in-house service.
Tim Everett, CIEH's director of professional services, said: "Pest management needs to be recognised again as a core environmental health function – it is fundamental to good public health and the public's right to this service should not be compromised by a household's ability to pay."
A Welsh Local Government Association spokeswoman said: "The reality is that local authorities are looking to make efficiency savings wherever possible and it is services such as pest control that will be increasingly put under the spotlight by severe finance pressures."
"While reducing the provision of pest control may solve a short-term financial problem, outsourcing or introducing a charging policy for these services could have much more serious consequences for public health and public protection in the future."
Some public health professionals have concerns the public may not be able to afford to pay for treatment services, therefore leaving pests to multiply and, at worst, spread disease. Furthermore, they have the opinion that the self-treatment of pests could lead to dangerous substances being laid by untrained members of the public, instead of being applied by pest control experts who are highly trained, skilled and who have excellent local knowledge.
Carmarthenshire council is currently considering whether to discontinue its pest control services to concentrate on other public health enforcement activities.
Philip Davies, the council's head of public protection, said: "The council does charge for pest control treatment at both domestic and commercial premises, so if the service is discontinued the only difference to owners and occupiers is that they would have to make arrangements for treatment with a private company instead."