They’ve taken over major cities including Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow.
But rats aren’t stopping there as Tottenham has become the latest UK destination to be overrun by the giant rodents.
London appears to have seen a rise in rat infestations in recent months, with increasing levels of fly-tipping on residential streets bringing in the vile rodents who like to feast on food waste.
Most recently, mounds of rubbish in Dagenham – dubbed ‘Ratland’ – have led to the pests ‘plaguing’ the once rural town – but locals claim their Labour council has done nothing about it.
Now, shocking photos show rodents slithering through the cracks in bins and scuttling along the roads in Tottenham, a busy district in north London.
Other images show huge rat holes dug into green areas of the Greater London area, which look so big a cat or small dog could likely fit through them.
Footage posted by a local on social media shows a gang of nearly 10 rats eating among the birds in broad daylight in Tottenham Green East last month.
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In Dagenham, residents have been up in arms about the ‘inhumane’ conditions making the once rural town into a living wasteland.
One local said the rats are ‘never ending, it’s going to be like this forever’.
‘I live by the railway and they are always coming into the back of my house,’ she added.
It comes after ongoing bin worker rows where staff were due to stage a strike for more than a week in August 2024, but a late offer of a 4.27 per cent overall rise saw it called off.
Meanwhile, ongoing bin strikes in Birmingham have seen a horrific rat infestation in the city.
Rodents said to be ‘the size of cats’ have been sighted by horrified residents scurrying around vast piles of garbage that have built up since the start of the year.
Mr Timms, who owns WJ Pest Solutions, is often called out to help with infestations – and said his workload has doubled in the past few months after the bin strike began.
He told the i: ‘There’s a real sense of disbelief about the scale of what’s happening here. I’ve been doing this for 11 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.
‘The rats are not only getting bigger, but they’re also getting bolder, venturing into people’s homes and even destroying cars.’
Almost 400 bin workers in the second city have been striking intermittently since January in an escalating row over the scrapping of some roles at the Labour-run local authority.
The council has blamed those workers on Unite picket lines for blocking vehicles that are meant to be picking up the slack as part of a contingency arrangement.
Jarringly, a street shared by Birmingham and neighbouring Bromsgrove District Council has bin bags lining the pavement on one side – while the other side, run by the smaller Tory-run body, is pristine.
Adam Kent, a Worcestershire councillor for the Wythall area, revealed the problem in a photo he posted on social media last month. He called the contrast ‘deeply concerning’.
To make matters worse cash-strapped Birmingham City Council, which was declared effectively bankrupt in 2023, want to increase the ‘rat tax’ – the charging for pest control – a service which was previously free.
Outraged locals now have to pay £24 per per call out but the council plans to hike prices once again to £26.40.
Rebel councillor Sam Forsyth has slammed the Labour-run council, telling BirminghamLive she had ‘no choice’ but to vote against their budget proposals as increased ‘rat tax’ would hit the city’s poorest the hardest.
But speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions on April 2, Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘In relation to the situation in Birmingham, it is completely unacceptable.
‘I fully support the council in declaring a major incident to resolve the situation and we will put in whatever additional support is needed.’
In 2023, Glasgow was hit with a rat crisis as giant rats the size of ‘small dogs’ turned a street in the city into a no-go zone for refuse workers.
Council staff were told it is was safe to empty bins behind Earl Street, in the Scotstoun area of Glasgow.
It came a month after city council leader Susan Aitken denied the number of rats was growing – claiming they were simply becoming more visible.
Chris Mitchell, GMB convenor for Glasgow’s cleansing workers, said some staff needed hospital treatment after being bitten or scratched by rats in other areas of the city. Vermin infestations in Glasgow rose by 31 per cent from 2021 to 2022, with 10,323 reports.
A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said previously: ‘We are hopeful our pest control treatments at this location are having an impact but we will continue to monitor this situation closely.’
Manchester has also suffered a rat infestation issue in recent years, hitting Rusholme Grove in Manchester particularly hard in 2023.
Fed-up locals claimed the cause of the vermin infestation was due to widespread fly-tipping in the area.
Manchester City Council said it was aware of the problem and was ‘implementing measures and treatments’ in the area for the last few months.
A statement from the council said at the time: ‘Rats are unhygienic and unpleasant for local people and we therefore take pest control very seriously.
‘Rusholme is receiving additional targeted treatment from our teams to help the issue.’
