‘Monster rats’ are multiplying in the UK thanks to warm weather

Britain is suffering a monster rat boom as extreme weather changes help the enormous rodents multiply, according to an expert.

Pest control expert Paul Claydon says he has never seen so many rats, nor such large ones.

Paul runs Fast Track Pest Control in Essex and says the number of rat call-outs has remained unusually high even in the typically quiet summer months.

He said: ‘Normally, rat call-outs start to ease off through the summer, but this year the volume has stayed really high.

‘I’m seeing levels of rat work in summer that I’d usually associate with the peak winter periods. And there are probably a number of reasons behind it.’

Paul says the UK’s milder winters increase survival rates and allow for longer breeding seasons.

‘I also think food availability is a massive factor,’ he added.

‘Waste collections have changed in a lot of areas, with some councils moving from weekly to fortnightly, and whenever there’s a delay or disruption to collections, you’re effectively creating a bigger food source for rats.

‘Birmingham is a good example, where the bin strikes led to huge amounts of rubbish building up and reports of serious rat problems.

‘When you have overflowing bins, food waste, takeaway waste, fly-tipping, people feeding birds, compost bins and generally more food available around urban areas.’

Some of the rats Paul has encountered have reached a whopping 40cm – or 16 inches – in length.

He also warned that the rodents can pose serious dangers to human populations, including spreading diseases, contaminating food, damaging buildings and even causing fires by chewing through electrical wires.

Rats have caused huge problems elsewhere too. Jemma and Sean Williams say they can hear rats crawling through their walls at night after the rodents invaded their home, leaving urine and droppings on their clothes and surfaces.

The pests have survived traps, bait and pest control as they battle to rid their home of the infestation.

The family had been struggling with rats outside their property for around two years before discovering they had made their way inside.

And it’s not just enormous rat populations that appear to be on the rise.

Metro previously reported that people living in the UK have claimed their houses are overrun by giant spiders.

Taking to TikTok, British users have shared skin-crawling clips of tennis ball-sized creepy crawlies in droves.

We spoke with the UK’s resident ‘spider expert’, Adam Hart, a professor of science communication at the University of Gloucestershire, to find out why we seem to be spotting more of them – and he says it’s because ‘spider season’ has just begun, lasting from September until mid-October.

This is when males leave their webs to find females to mate with.

‘It can look as though they’ve suddenly invaded our homes,’ Hart told Metro.

‘But in many cases they’ve actually been living in and around our houses quite unobtrusively for much of the year.

‘What changes at this time of year is their behavior. The large house spiders people are seeing running across floors are very often mature males wandering in search of females.

‘They suddenly become much more mobile and conspicuous, so we’re seeing more spiders, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there are actually more of them.’

September is also a time when the weather becomes wetter and windier, meaning tiny creatures like spiders are more likely to seek refuge indoors.

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