Urgent warning over ‘deadly’ mistake Brits make when dealing with rat infestation – it makes vermin ‘bigger & stronger’
BRITS have been issued an urgent warning over a “deadly” mistake many make when dealing with rat infestations.
A rise in fast food since the start of lockdown as led to an explosion in rats breeding within walls, basements and attics of UK homes.
And experts say vermin are now becoming “bigger and stronger” because of one common mistake homeowners are guilty of.
The British Pest Control Association has warned that too many people attempting to deal with rat infestations themselves had likely made the problem worse.
They warned a failure to properly use over-the-counter repellents has led to rats growing bigger in size and strength rather than dying.
Rats are said to have developed resistance to the common brand poisons that used to cull them.
It 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.”
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 also put the growing rodent population down to our unhealthy diet of calorie-laden fast food with the rats feasting on the leftovers.
Rat expert Steve Balmain, professor of ecology at the University of Greenwich, previously 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.”
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.
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.