'Rats are eating McDonald’s' - Rat catcher declares as business boom during Birmingham bin strike

Christan Hems, who runs Pest Interceptors with his son Ricardo, has aired his thoughts on the situation which has seen rubbish piled high on the streets of Britain’s second city.

The 52-year-old, who lives in Wordsley, has been out and about in Birmingham where rats have been scurrying out of sewers and into people’s gardens - with the backlog of bin bags blamed for the rodent surge.

Veteran pest controller Christan, however, says broken sewer pipes are a major factor. 

He said: “If you’ve got rats it’s 99 per cent likely from broken pipes connected to sewers under your house or your neighbour’s.

“Rats are getting out of the sewers. It’s the sewers that are the problem. The rubbish isn’t helping at all though.”

Christan, who has been in the pest control game for 17 years, while West Bromwich-based Ricardo, aged 27, has been helping to catch rats and other pests since he was a teenager. 

Pest Interceptors was set up as a registered company in January 2021 and business has boomed.

Christan and Ricardo have found themselves busier than ever with requests for help and online sales of traps have soared - especially since the Birmingham bin strike began.

Pest Interceptors have also appeared on GB News and ITV’s Good Morning Britain airing their thoughts on Birmingham’s rat and rubbish problems. They’ve also notched up more than 120,000 views on their recent YouTube video about how best to get rid of rodents - and it’s not by poisoning them.

"A lot of pest control companies will just be putting poison down,’ Christan said but he added: “It never is the answer with rats - it’s illegal and it can take days and days and it causes an agonising slow death.”

He favours finding the root cause for any rat infestation and this, he said, is almost always down to broken pipes - as they found on a recent call out to a property in Knowle, Solihull.

Christan said: “A guy moved into his house three weeks ago and noticed scratching noises. Pest control came out and put poison down but it turned out it was coming from next door. Rats were getting under the neighbour’s house and into his extension in the loft.”

Finding and fixing broken sewer pipes is almost always the way to tackle the problem, Christan said - adding: “We offer a rat-free lifetime guarantee.”

That’s easier said than done in some parts of Birmingham.

Christan said he recently drove through Bordesley Green and Alum Rock and he added: “There were piles of rubbish. Part of the problem in Birmingham is the fly-tipping. People are taking advantage - thinking that someone at some point is going to take away the rubbish.”

He said the rubbish has been providing both food and harbour for rats - the two things they require most - and the rodents running riot have been nibbling on McDonald’s so they’re not exactly small. 

“These rats are eating McDonald’s. I’m a size 11, I’ve had rats as big as my foot,” he joked.

He told how Pest Interceptors has seen a big increase in trap sales on Spotify and Amazon and said their services have been in demand nationwide, not just locally.

But he warned - Birmingham’s rat problem won’t go away unless all of the rubbish is removed and broken sewer pipes are repaired. 

He stressed: “There’s rats coming out of broken sewer pipes. Poison will never stop that. There’s billions of rats in the sewer.”