Britain facing plague of 300 million giant super-rats who can chew through concrete
BRITAIN faces being plagued by 300 million enormous super-rats who can chew through concrete.
Experts have put the growing rodent population down to our unhealthy diet of calorie-laden fast food with the rats feasting on the leftovers.
The explosion of rat numbers has also been put down to their breeding in the walls, basements and attics of people’s homes since lockdown.
Rat expert Steve Balmain, professor of ecology at the University of Greenwich, said: “I could easily imagine 200 to 300 million rats here.”
He added: “Rats need to gnaw as their teeth grow continuously and gnawing keeps them sharp.
“Rats can certainly gnaw through concrete and metal, most normally soft metals such as tin, aluminium, copper and lead, but I have seen gnaw marks on steel, various hard plastics such as waste pipes and terracotta pipes – as well as concrete walls.”
Pest controller Craig Morris, 53, who has “ratted” for the last 15 years in Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire, said: “Rats are becoming more of an issue.
“They are one of nature’s amazing survivors. They have exploited everything we do and done it really well.”
He believes the growing rat population is also being fuelled by the increased availability of food due to rising human waste combined with poor sanitation and hygiene.
During one recent home infestation he attended one rat had chewed its way through the back of a bread bin and eat the loaf inside.
He said: “What might sound horrific to most people is just an everyday occurrence to me, I’m afraid.”
Pest control expert Ian Helands said: “They’re cunning and getting bolder and bolder. Basically, if they want to get into your home, they will.
“There are more rats than ever and they are taking over. I have seen some the size of cats.”
The largest rat on record to have been caught in the UK measured 21 inches long, the size of a small dog and was trapped by a Bournemouth pest hunter in 2018.
Not only are numbers increasing but experts say they are becoming immune to poisons.
Many are said to be monster mutants up to 2ft long which are immune to shop-counter poisons and pose a serious health threat because they carry deadly diseases.
Figures indicate that 78 per cent of rats and 95 per cent of house mice now have genes that mean poisons known as anti-coagulant rodenticides are no longer a death sentence.
Reports of poison-immune rodents first surfaced in the south of England in the 1990s and the problem has worsened in recent years.
Experts have pointed to the inefficacy of shop-bought repellents.
The rodents, rather than fall over dead, are using the toxic pellets to enhance their size, strength and immunity.
The British Pest Control Association said: “The trouble is that people who try to treat problems themselves are likely to be making the problem worse.
“The rodents have become resistant and, in some cases, immune to off-the-shelf poisons to the point where they’re actually feeding off the toxic pellets, which means their size and strength is increasing.”
Experts say because of the extreme intelligence of rats they can map out pathways through our homes and their flexible bodies allow them to squeeze into tiny spaces and even go round a toilet’s u-bend.
Last month, a diner was horrified to find a family of rats climbing on a bin outside a McDonald’s in Hull.
In January, one woman vowed never to use the chain again after filming a rat scurrying across a table in a McDonald’s in Tilbury.
Recently, locals in the Welsh seaside town of Tenby said “rats as big as cats” had been spotted burrowing into the sea cliffs.
A study published in December warned around 78 per cent of rats had developed genetic resistance to anticoagulants.
Their disease-carrying urine is also suspected to be causing outbreaks of salmonella and leptospirosis.