A pest control expert has warned that rats "breeding freely" amid Birmingham's ongoing bin strike could spread potentially "fatal diseases" to residents.The bin strike in Birmingham has now entered its seventh full week, with thousands of tonnes of rubbish left uncollected across England's second largest city.READ THE FULL STORY HERE
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00:00You're certainly right to say that the urine is an issue.
00:05There's a disease called Viles disease, a type of leptospirosis,
00:08a bacterial disease that is spreading their urine.
00:11And yes, they can spread the urine far and wide.
00:13And if anything is wet, any of the rubbish is wet,
00:17then handle it only with gloves, I would recommend,
00:20because the bacteria can be picked up on your hands
00:25and you can then spread it to food you're eating or touch your lips.
00:28Or if it gets in through a cut, then it can give you the disease,
00:32Viles disease, which can affect you very badly and it can be fatal.
00:38So that is a key disease risk.
00:41But there are other diseases that they spread as well,
00:43the likes of Salmonella and Hantavirus and things.
00:47So, yeah, in their droppings, those will be full of other bacteria.
00:52So any contamination of your hands or, you know, if they get into buildings,
00:57then that is a serious health risk.
01:01Because isn't Hantavirus, isn't that what they think Gene Hackman's wife died of?
01:05And isn't that sort of airborne as well?
01:08Yes, yes, that's more airborne.
01:11That is from dry dropping.
01:13So with the hot weather we've been having, the droppings dry out.
01:17It's possible that the virus can be given off airborne
01:20airborne if indeed those rats in that area have got Hantavirus.
01:25So that is a possible problem as well.
01:28Is there a way of sort of stopping this?
01:32Because once you get an outbreak of rats, it's very difficult to actually get rid of them.
01:36Do Birmingham have much chance in kind of stopping this from getting a lot worse?
01:42It's going to be a phenomenal problem now to get rid of the rats once they've got established.
01:48They need three things to live.
01:50They need a harbour, somewhere to live, some shelter.
01:53They need the food and they need a water supply.
01:56And at the moment they've got all that.
01:58So they'll be breeding freely.
02:00They'll be rapidly expanding in number because they do breed very quickly,
02:05very short gestation period and short turnaround of generations.
02:08And so the numbers will be getting out of hand.
02:12And they will then, as was correctly stated a few minutes ago,
02:17if the rubbish is finally moved, they will move into people's houses.
02:21They'll find ways in through holes and folks in the houses.
02:27And they'll start stealing food wherever they can.
02:31And so they will cause further problems, not just from spreading diseases,
02:36but the likes of fire risks from chewing electric cables
02:39because they do need to gnaw to keep their teeth filed down.
02:43Oh, really? That's why they do it.
02:44And very briefly, because we're running out of time,
02:46is there anything that the people of Birmingham or anyone who has rat infestation around them
02:51can do to keep themselves safe?
02:55Absolutely.
02:55They'll need to call a pest controller to get them to come and put some controls down.
03:00And I would advise that if they've got rats in the vicinity,
03:04that they're extremely careful with their hygiene.
03:06They wash their hands regularly.
03:08They wear waterproof gloves if they're handling anything that might have got wet contamination.
03:13They're very careful not to contaminate any of the food they're eating, etc.
03:21So, yes, there's certain things they can do.
03:24But also, try and keep the litter covered wherever they possibly can
03:29so that the rats can't access any food that's in it.