But now it’s like, oh there’s a giant rat there. “They’re appearing in places that I used to think were scenic. I’ve lived in London for four years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” she says. “I saw another one run up a block of flats and I screamed. “I actually saw one come right up to me while I was walking,” says Jen Johnson, who lives in the eastern borough of Tower Hamlets. London residents are also becoming more accustomed to seeing their new neighbors and are alarmed by their boldness. The avid gardener should also be aware that compost heaps attract rats, she says. That means sealing off any food waste outside the house in appropriate rubbish containers, keeping food locked away inside the house and checking all air vents are property protected with steel mesh and cracks filled with steel and cement. Many, he says, require stronger traps and more poison to kill.īungay says the best pest control starts with prevention. Claydon claims it’s not uncommon for him to catch a rat measuring up to 40 centimeters (15.7 inches) these days. Research by pest control firm Rentokil, cited in the GLA report, claimed just one breeding pair of rats can lead to the birth of about 1,250 in a year. Photo of mice squabbling on subway platform wins prestigious photography award Sam Rowley/Wildlife Photographer of the Year It’s likely there are more of them than the city’s nine million human inhabitants, whose population growth is slowing, according to the Office for National Statistics. Nobody really knows how many rats there are in London, though some private surveys from exterminators claim they could number up to 20 million. In 2017, after a video of rats pouring out of a flower bed in the borough of Harrow went viral, Conservatives in the Greater London Assembly (GLA) commissioned a report which found more than 100 complaints were logged with councils each day.Ĭalled “Rat Land,” it warned the city should get a grip on its rodent problem before attracting the bad press that dogged Paris after similar footage surfaced of their “super rats” crawling all over public parks near the Louvre. But they said they don’t collect data on the issue because that’s the job of each of the capital’s 32 boroughs.Ī spokesperson for the borough of Richmond upon Thames, however, told CNN it does not collect data on rats and does not offer pest control services. The mayor’s office told CNN the London Councils’ office was best placed to respond to questions on the subject. When it comes to controlling rats, London doesn’t seem to have an overarching plan. Paul Claydon says it's not uncommon for him to catch a rat measuring 40 centimeters (15.7 inches). “Rats can chew through very hard substances like soft metals and brick.” “We may see rats now where we wouldn’t normally because they are so desperate,” says Natalie Bungay, of the BPCA. They haven’t yet calculated figures for this year but told CNN sightings were up, presenting a public health problem which many homeowners are left to deal with on their own. The British Pest Control Association (BPCA), which represents 700 vermin catchers across the country, said its members reported a 51% hike in rodent activity during the first lockdown, in the spring of 2020, and a 78% increase in November after another lockdown was brought in. “I wanted something that was recession-proof, and it has been relentlessly busy,” he says.Ĭlaydon says he normally gets about 10 rodent call outs a week but during lockdown it’s been “easily 20 plus.” Konstantin Hartmann/BCCN/Humboldt University Berlinįancy a game of hide and squeak? Rats love to play, scientists findĬoates and Claydon have both left long careers in other fields to set up small firms in what has become a booming sector.Ĭoates, a veteran of the Iraq War, founded his outfit five years ago and has since written an eBook named “War and Pest: from Basra to bedbugs.”Ĭlaydon spent 25 years in IT at a financial services firm before setting up his business two years ago. The rats learned how to play hide and seek with human researchers over a period of a few weeks.
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