{"id":45800,"date":"2025-04-24T05:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T05:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/45800\/"},"modified":"2025-04-24T05:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T05:35:10","slug":"rats-are-eating-mcdonalds-rat-catcher-declares-as-business-boom-during-birmingham-bin-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/45800\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Rats are eating McDonald\u2019s’ – Rat catcher declares as business boom during Birmingham bin strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christan Hems, who runs\u00a0Pest Interceptors<\/a> with his son Ricardo, has aired his thoughts on the situation which has seen rubbish piled high on the streets of Britain\u2019s second city.<\/p>\n

The 52-year-old, who lives in Wordsley, has been out and about in Birmingham<\/a> where rats have been scurrying out of sewers and into people\u2019s gardens – with the backlog of bin bags blamed for the rodent surge.<\/p>\n

Veteran pest controller Christan, however, says broken sewer pipes are a major factor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIf you\u2019ve got rats it\u2019s 99 per cent likely from broken pipes connected to sewers under your house or your neighbour\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cRats are getting out of the sewers. It\u2019s the sewers that are the problem. The rubbish isn\u2019t helping at all though.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChristanChristan Hems of Pest Interceptors<\/p>\n

Christan, who has been in the pest control game for 17 years, while West Bromwich<\/a>-based Ricardo, aged 27, has been helping to catch rats and other pests since he was a teenager.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pest Interceptors was set up as a registered company in January 2021 and business has boomed.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Pest Interceptors have also appeared on GB News and ITV\u2019s Good Morning Britain airing their thoughts on Birmingham\u2019s rat and rubbish problems. They\u2019ve also notched up more than 120,000 views on their recent YouTube video about how best to get rid of rodents – and it\u2019s not by poisoning them.<\/p>\n

“A lot of pest control companies will just be putting poison down,\u2019 Christan said but he added: \u201cIt never is the answer with rats – it\u2019s illegal and it can take days and days and it causes an agonising slow death.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Christan said: \u201cA 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\u2019s house and into his extension in the loft.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding and fixing broken sewer pipes is almost always the way to tackle the problem, Christan said – adding: \u201cWe offer a rat-free lifetime guarantee.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s easier said than done in some parts of Birmingham.<\/p>\n

\"ChristanChristan Hems of Pest Interceptors on the rubbish-filled streets of Birmingham<\/p>\n

Christan said he recently drove through Bordesley Green and Alum Rock and he added: \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s so they\u2019re not exactly small.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese rats are eating McDonald\u2019s. I\u2019m a size 11, I\u2019ve had rats as big as my foot,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But he warned – Birmingham\u2019s rat problem won\u2019t go away unless all of the rubbish is removed and broken sewer pipes are repaired.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He stressed: \u201cThere\u2019s rats coming out of broken sewer pipes. Poison will never stop that. There\u2019s billions of rats in the sewer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christan Hems, who runs\u00a0Pest Interceptors with his son Ricardo, has aired his thoughts on the situation which has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,51,1354,393,4884,379,12,12608,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-45800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-dudley","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-local-hubs","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-sandwell","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}