{"id":48057,"date":"2025-04-25T01:09:22","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T01:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48057\/"},"modified":"2025-04-25T01:09:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T01:09:22","slug":"i-hunt-birminghams-rats-with-a-giant-rifle-weve-won-the-battle-but-war-isnt-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/48057\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I hunt Birmingham’s rats with a giant rifle \u2013 we’ve won the battle but war isn’t over’"},"content":{"rendered":"

EXCLUSIVE: In a bid to help solve Brum’s rodent crisis, the Daily Star has hung out with the Pied Piper of Birmingham who showed us the massive rifle that’s so good at killing rats it rendered our services redundant\"TheThe Daily Star learns the ropes from the busiest bloke in the city, as a hiatus in the war arrives (Image: Humphrey Nemar)<\/p>\n

The Rat Man of Birmingham<\/a> is looking forward to a little break.<\/p>\n

Since the bin strikes<\/a> started on March 11, William Timms has been the busiest man in the West Midlands<\/a>, taking only one day off in 10 weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn two and a half months I\u2019ve had one day off and I’ve finally got another one tomorrow,\u201d the owner of WJ Pest Solutions said between gags and retches. \u201cI\u2019ve been called everything, the Rat Catcher, the Pied Piper, it\u2019s unbelievable,\u201d he said. ‘Unbelievable’ is a word he uses often, but given the circumstances maybe it’s warranted.<\/p>\n

We were on Colville Road, close to Birmingham\u2019s Balti Triangle, home to what WIlliam believed was the final pile of rotting refuse. \u201cThis time of year I’m normally doing about four or five rodent jobs a day. This year I\u2019m averaging eight or nine a day.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam Timms is Birmingham’s rat man(Image: Humphrey Nemar)<\/p>\n

The day of our visit was a little different, however, with William telling us he had seen about 15 bin trucks that morning, finally setting about tackling the city’s dirty dilemma. The trucks were unmarked, and smaller than the normal Birmingham City Council ones, but still, by the time we arrived the infamous rubbish mountains were largely gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cBirmingham\u2019s always had an issue with rats, but the way the bins are on strike now there have been some piles that have been left for four or five weeks,” William said.<\/p>\n

“Rats have started to nest inside them instead of going back down to the sewers or into peoples\u2019 sheds; come night time they\u2019re just crawling all over. It\u2019s a major health hazard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam and the Star were left gagging by the grim scene at the last bin pile in Brum(Image: Humphrey Nemar)<\/p>\n

There were nappies and sanitary towels, plastic cups and a sofa, and even a large mass of poo that made William\u2019s eyes water. We had headed down to try and help the city with its rodent problem, even putting out an appeal for people to tell us about their massive rats. But by the time we got there, there were none to be seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis here is five or six weeks now,\u201d said Nadeem, who worked across the road in restaurant Lahore Village. \u201cSchool is opening on Monday, all the small kids, I think there\u2019s a rubbish block on the end of the road too. Last time we couldn\u2019t even park the car here, people had to walk in the road.\u201d<\/p>\n

The restaurant had its own refuse area in a fenced-off enclosure but commercial bins on wheels were also present at the pile, often without bungs in the bottom, making it easy for the rats to crawl up inside and make a nest. Still, the critters proved elusive to our steely gaze.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam got deep into the bins, hunting with the Daily Star (Image: Humphrey Nemar)<\/p>\n

William claimed to have killed \u2018a couple of thousand\u2019 of the rodents since the strikes began, with poison his most lethal weapon. Still, there\u2019s more than one way to kill a rat.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cRats have neophobia, which means they\u2019re scared of new objects. It means I have to come back seven to 10 days after I\u2019ve laid the bait. Sometimes I stick snappers down, they\u2019re quite good but every time I put one down, some bugger nicks it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve caught about 50 rats on snap traps, and I\u2019ve shot about 60 more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gun in question, a SMK SYN XS78, was as powerful as an air rifle can be in the UK and would kill a person if it hit them in the right place. It looked the part, a massive sniper rifle with a big scope and long barrel, and as far as we were concerned, had left rats on the endangered species list.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam has a big gun which is more than capable of killing a rat with a headshot (Image: Humphrey Nemar)<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to tell the police if I\u2019m using it,” he said. “I have to say I\u2019m going to be on this street at a certain time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s fallen foul of it before. \u201cNext thing I know I\u2019m being pinned down by armed response.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gun was striking, but poison still remained his best friend.<\/p>\n

He said poisoning has knock on effects. \u201cThey go back to their nests and die and then the alive ones eat the dead, and secondary poisoning takes over.\u201d<\/p>\n

William admitted rat numbers had started to fall since the bins had begun being cleared. He did however claim that getting rid of the trash mountains was creating new problems.<\/p>\n

\"AThe rat population was unharmed during our visit but William has claimed many victims(Image: Humphrey Nemar)<\/p>\n

The removal of a heap on Cheddar Road, for instance, saw William called in because the newly-homeless rodents had taken refuge in a man\u2019s car and chewed through the electrics. \u201cWhen the black sacks are cleared, the rats are going to find somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now the next part of the battle begins: clearing up the insurgence by sniffing out and snuffing out rodents that have taken shelter in nearby properties.<\/p>\n

Still, for now, there\u2019s a short truce in the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping [for a few days]. I\u2019ve got tomorrow off,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

With the strikes still ongoing at the time of writing, he doesn’t think the peace will last for long. The trash piles? \u201cThey\u2019ll return, mate, they\u2019ll return.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: In a bid to help solve Brum’s rodent crisis, the Daily Star has hung out with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,560,4884,26191,26192,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-48057","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-england","11":"tag-exclusives","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-rats","14":"tag-super-rats","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114395936507281684","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48057","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=48057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}