Feb 8, 2021 08:35 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021...ur-offices
EXCERPTS: An empty office building is a good place to shelter if you’re a rat in a crisis. [...] “A rat can climb up a wastewater pipe, no problem,” says Andy Tyson of Guardian Pest Management in London. ... “Rats can gnaw through plastic. Not often, but they have done it and you can tell. But it’s a real problem finding it and no one I know has a perfect solution to it.”
And once inside, you and your rat family will find the modern office environment has many convenient nesting sites. [...] For many of us resigned to working from home, those office spaces that we inhabited ... and then abandoned suddenly last March are an increasingly distant memory. It’s hard to imagine any form of life at all existing between those empty desks and black computer screens. Yet in the year since we’ve been gone, a different form of life is creeping in, making the most of our absence.
During lockdown, the British Pest Control Association has reported an increase in rodent sightings of more than 41%. “We’ve had reports of rats and mice infesting empty buildings and it seems that their lifestyle patterns are changing,” says BPCA spokesperson Natalie Bungay.
Since our cities and towns emptied out and there’s less food discarded in outdoor spaces, rats are more tempted to come inside. Once a week [...] the cleaners now turn on all of the sinks and showers full-blast to flush out the rats. “It does make you think that when we’re not there, the rodents are all running around making themselves at home.”
[...] Pest controllers warn that unless business owners take sensible precautions, rats and mice will make merry. According to the January ONS figures, 27% of businesses in the UK have closed or paused trading due to the Covid-19 pandemic, while only 48% of workers had travelled to work in the previous seven days. “Large office spaces – any commercial space that usually gets a lot of footfall ... can become a breeding ground,” Young says. Pest.co.uk warns the British rat population boomed by 25% in 2020, bringing the total to 150m. And owing to the speed with which rats breed, a minor incursion that is not dealt with fast can soon become a major infestation...
[...] There is something end-times about rats – a deep association with plague, squalor and apocalypse that gnaws at the modern human psyche. During the first spring 2020 lockdown we were treated to a series of diverting stories about nature returning to our abandoned city centres: dolphins were (falsely) reported to have returned to the Venice canals; cougars roamed apartment complexes in Santiago; wild boars probed bins in Haifa; goats wandered around downtown Llandudno.
But rats are in a different category, something other than wildlife – the undocumented migrants of the animal world. In this grimmest phase of lockdown, stories of nature returning to cities tend to have a hysterical tone. The Sun is already warning of “RATMAGEDDON” in 2021 as “MUTANT RATS” invade our homes and offices.
“There’s nothing good about rats,” complains Mohammad Hanafi, a technician with Pest Control Service Group. “All they do is mate, breed and cause damage.” He was recently dispatched to a call centre that had been destroyed by rats entering via an air vent from the kitchen. A rat’s incisors never stop growing, he tells me, so they will gnaw through anything to wear them down. “Internet cables. Keyboards. Anything they see. That’s where the word rodent comes from: the Latin word for gnaw.”
[...] Rats are clever, too. Extremely clever. A trap is nothing to the older, more experienced rats ... “They just kick it around until it snaps; then they eat the bait. And they can detect poisoned bait a yard off. I believe some of them can read.” Young says he once saw a rat pause at a glue trap that had been laid in its path, return to the bin it had just come from, and fetch a crisp packet to stick over it, meaning it could pass with ease...
However, as Natalie Bungay counsels, it’s not as if the rats are enjoying this any more than we are. The disruption to their established routines has been profound and the closure of restaurants has hit them particularly hard. “There’s less rubbish on the streets for them to eat. But because of the vacated spaces, there’s more space for them to occupy. They have to forage much further and make do with other types of sustenance. In the early lockdown, many local authorities were taping up bins. Those rats will be going further afield and appearing in areas we wouldn’t normally see them.” In the end, rats just want what we want: food, warmth and a place to have families.
[...] But what happens when lockdown finally eases and we have to return to our ghostly offices? Will it be a battle to win these neglected spaces back?
While the guesstimates and warnings of pest control companies should be read with scepticism, clearly the problem is real. “A lot more people are seeing rats when they’re out and about, which is always a warning that numbers are on the increase,” says Jonathan Ratcliffe of Pest.co.uk. “What we’re waiting for is when people do start going back into factories, offices, all the food outlets that have been shut – well, it could be interesting.” (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: An empty office building is a good place to shelter if you’re a rat in a crisis. [...] “A rat can climb up a wastewater pipe, no problem,” says Andy Tyson of Guardian Pest Management in London. ... “Rats can gnaw through plastic. Not often, but they have done it and you can tell. But it’s a real problem finding it and no one I know has a perfect solution to it.”
And once inside, you and your rat family will find the modern office environment has many convenient nesting sites. [...] For many of us resigned to working from home, those office spaces that we inhabited ... and then abandoned suddenly last March are an increasingly distant memory. It’s hard to imagine any form of life at all existing between those empty desks and black computer screens. Yet in the year since we’ve been gone, a different form of life is creeping in, making the most of our absence.
During lockdown, the British Pest Control Association has reported an increase in rodent sightings of more than 41%. “We’ve had reports of rats and mice infesting empty buildings and it seems that their lifestyle patterns are changing,” says BPCA spokesperson Natalie Bungay.
Since our cities and towns emptied out and there’s less food discarded in outdoor spaces, rats are more tempted to come inside. Once a week [...] the cleaners now turn on all of the sinks and showers full-blast to flush out the rats. “It does make you think that when we’re not there, the rodents are all running around making themselves at home.”
[...] Pest controllers warn that unless business owners take sensible precautions, rats and mice will make merry. According to the January ONS figures, 27% of businesses in the UK have closed or paused trading due to the Covid-19 pandemic, while only 48% of workers had travelled to work in the previous seven days. “Large office spaces – any commercial space that usually gets a lot of footfall ... can become a breeding ground,” Young says. Pest.co.uk warns the British rat population boomed by 25% in 2020, bringing the total to 150m. And owing to the speed with which rats breed, a minor incursion that is not dealt with fast can soon become a major infestation...
[...] There is something end-times about rats – a deep association with plague, squalor and apocalypse that gnaws at the modern human psyche. During the first spring 2020 lockdown we were treated to a series of diverting stories about nature returning to our abandoned city centres: dolphins were (falsely) reported to have returned to the Venice canals; cougars roamed apartment complexes in Santiago; wild boars probed bins in Haifa; goats wandered around downtown Llandudno.
But rats are in a different category, something other than wildlife – the undocumented migrants of the animal world. In this grimmest phase of lockdown, stories of nature returning to cities tend to have a hysterical tone. The Sun is already warning of “RATMAGEDDON” in 2021 as “MUTANT RATS” invade our homes and offices.
“There’s nothing good about rats,” complains Mohammad Hanafi, a technician with Pest Control Service Group. “All they do is mate, breed and cause damage.” He was recently dispatched to a call centre that had been destroyed by rats entering via an air vent from the kitchen. A rat’s incisors never stop growing, he tells me, so they will gnaw through anything to wear them down. “Internet cables. Keyboards. Anything they see. That’s where the word rodent comes from: the Latin word for gnaw.”
[...] Rats are clever, too. Extremely clever. A trap is nothing to the older, more experienced rats ... “They just kick it around until it snaps; then they eat the bait. And they can detect poisoned bait a yard off. I believe some of them can read.” Young says he once saw a rat pause at a glue trap that had been laid in its path, return to the bin it had just come from, and fetch a crisp packet to stick over it, meaning it could pass with ease...
However, as Natalie Bungay counsels, it’s not as if the rats are enjoying this any more than we are. The disruption to their established routines has been profound and the closure of restaurants has hit them particularly hard. “There’s less rubbish on the streets for them to eat. But because of the vacated spaces, there’s more space for them to occupy. They have to forage much further and make do with other types of sustenance. In the early lockdown, many local authorities were taping up bins. Those rats will be going further afield and appearing in areas we wouldn’t normally see them.” In the end, rats just want what we want: food, warmth and a place to have families.
[...] But what happens when lockdown finally eases and we have to return to our ghostly offices? Will it be a battle to win these neglected spaces back?
While the guesstimates and warnings of pest control companies should be read with scepticism, clearly the problem is real. “A lot more people are seeing rats when they’re out and about, which is always a warning that numbers are on the increase,” says Jonathan Ratcliffe of Pest.co.uk. “What we’re waiting for is when people do start going back into factories, offices, all the food outlets that have been shut – well, it could be interesting.” (MORE - details)