In Birmingham, terrified cleanup workers were shown on camera being frightened away by rats that sprung out of the rubbish bags they were meant to be hauled away.
Four employees are seen fleeing the facility in the CCTV clip as rats sprang out of the pile of rubbish on the ground.
The workers run towards the exit gate as the rats scurry towards them before making their way back into the pile of bin bags.
On Monday, a major incident was reported by Birmingham City Council after the continuous bin strike hit day 25 with 17,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish piled high in the streets.
Cash-strapped Birmingham City Council claimed the issue has been compounded by striking binmen blocking its depots with pickets – meaning vehicles struggle to exit to collect rubbish.
The rat infestation has become so dire the rodents have been dubbed the Squeaky Blinders because they seem to have the city in their grasp – much like the Peaky Blinders gang of the late nineteenth century which inspired the BBC drama series of the same name.
The Unite union says its members face pay cuts after the scrapping of waste collection and recycling officer roles. But the Labour-run council has insisted its offer is ‘fair and reasonable’.
Birmingham City Council also argues Unite’s claims that 150 workers could lose £8,000 per year in pay and insists plans to restructure the service are a crucial part of the authority’s efforts to become financially sustainable.
In September 2023 the council effectively declared itself bankrupt after facing a £760 million equal pay bill and an £80 million overspend on an IT project, triggering a restructuring as it attempts to save £300 million over two years.
One road on a council boundary line is a stark example of the problem – with black sacks piled high on one pavement, but the other side clean and empty.
Unite has warned bin disruption in Birmingham could stretch into the summer after refuse workers voted in favour of extending their strike mandate over the council’s use of temporary labour to ‘undermine’ their industrial action.
The council has said 90 waste collection crews are still out collecting bins, out of a total of 200, with residents being urged still to put their bins out for crews to collect when they could.
Unite should focus on ‘negotiating in good faith, drop their opposition to changes needed to resolve long-standing pay issues and get round the table’ to bring the Birmingham bin strike to an end, Downing Street said.
Local government minister Jim McMahon visited Birmingham to meet council chiefs to end the bin strike which has left rubbish piling up on the city’s streets.
A Number 10 spokesman said: ‘The residents of Birmingham are our first and foremost priority, and as you will have seen, the local government minister Jim McMahon was in Birmingham yesterday meeting council leaders and commissioners to discuss the council’s response and make sure this is being gripped.
‘Following that meeting, police have installed barriers at the picket line to prevent waste lorries being recklessly blocked from leaving the depots this morning to start dealing with the backlog.
‘Unite need to focus on negotiating in good faith, drop their opposition to changes needed to resolve long-standing equal pay issues, and get round the table with the council to bring this strike to an end.’
Desperate residents in strike-hit Birmingham swarmed a bin lorry yesterday morning as a pest controller warned rats the size of baby monkeys were now plaguing the rubbish-strewn suburbs.
The monster rodents can be seen ‘on a daily basis’ scurrying among the mountains of uncollected waste which have been dumped by city roadsides, Britain’s busiest pest controller said.
William Timms, known locally as Birmingham’s ‘rat man’, also claimed police had even been called out to shoot some of the rats due to the sheer magnitude of vermin invading the second city.
He spoke out as a mobile collection – a bin lorry in a static location allowing locals whose bins aren’t being collected to drop their rubbish off – was plagued by householders in inner-city Tyseley yesterday morning.
The scenes, which saw locals hauling full wheelie bins through a small park, reflected a similarly chaotic situation at another static collection a fortnight ago in nearby Moseley.
Yesterday morning, a pile of bin bags the length of six cars was stacked up beside the green space, where the entrance play park was also littered with discarded rubbish.
Mountains of rubbish reached four to five feet high in areas along nearby roadsides.
Tyseley resident Danny Carter, 33, said: ‘It just makes you ashamed to be a Brummie right now, to be honest.
‘It looks like those giant rubbish mountains they get in places like Mumbai. People have just seen the lorries were coming and used it as a chance to flytip.
‘People are fed up but this is just disgusting. I think it’s a public health emergency, we can’t go on like this. It is utter carnage.’
Another resident described how her friend had had to ‘drag the bin down the road with the baby in the pram’.
One binman who was out collecting the rubbish said: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my entire career. It is the worst I have ever seen in my life.’
A bin bag mountain also appeared next to the park last night after word circulated locally that a static collection was due to take place and residents started dumping their rubbish at the collection point.
Ironically, one of the municipal recycling and rubbish disposal facilities in the Labour-run city is located in Tyseley.
Kevin Hollinrake, the Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, visited the suburb this morning and posed in front of a waste mountain.
The Tory MP for Thirsk and Malton also posted a drive-by video of the rubbish-strewn streets on social media platform X, before highlighting a line of traffic which he said was queuing for the nearby tip.
Mr Timms, who runs WJ Pest Solutions, says he caught a 22-inch rat last week – the same size as a ferret, some monkeys or a small dog – and has only had one day off in nearly three months.
He said: ‘The issue is getting out of control. There are bags piled 5ft high and 10-15ft across.
‘Rats the size of kittens are being seen daily. I had one last week that measured over 22 inches in length.’
Mr Timms said that ‘on the odd occasion’ West Midlands Police had been called out to help deal with the problem, but the force today denied that its firearms unit had been involved in tackling the rodent menace.
Other pest controllers across Birmingham say they have also seen business levels double since the strikes began and there’s also been a surge in cockroaches.
Almost 400 council bin workers in Birmingham began indefinite strike action last month as part of a row over jobs and pay.
Mr Timms added: ‘Work increase has been 50 percent more compared to previous years. Cockroach calls have also gone up too.
‘As a born and bred Brummie, I feel disgusting how the city looks.
‘On my street alone we have bins that haven’t been collected, with black sacks starting to pile up, I had a day off for the first time in two months as my wife and body were telling me it’s time for a break.
Stuart Howes, managing director of Greenlab Pest control in Birmingham, said they were getting 30-50 per cent more callouts.
He said: ‘On average we are currently experiencing 30-50 percent more call-outs due to the bin strikes, this applies to both business and residential properties across Birmingham as a whole.
‘We serve around 700 business customers in the West Midlands and the high ratio of callouts within Birmingham itself compared to other regions is evident.
‘Bearing in mind that our peak season for rat callouts is usually October – February during the cooler months, this is out of the normal range and is significant.
‘We are mainly experiencing call-outs to gardens and driveways where rats are now being sighted on a regular basis as they scavenge for the abundance of food that has now kindly been left out for them by Birmingham Council.
‘Rats are certainly gaining size, again due the ongoing supply of food that has been left on the doorsteps.
‘The rapid reduction rates coupled with a never-ending food source has left a vastly overpopulated rat population literally on Birmingham residents’ doorsteps.’
Sharon Nicol, director of Birmingham Pest Control Ltd, said: ‘We’ve had to order three times as many bait stations in because we’re so busy.
‘The demand has definitely increased since the strikes began.’
One road on a council boundary line is a stark example of the problem – with black bags stacked high on one pavement, but the other side completely clean and empty.
Chelworth Road in the Walkers Heath area of the city sits right on the city’s boundary with Bromsgrove District Council. Piles of rubbish were pictured stacked up on the Birmingham side of the road, while the other side, serviced by bin lorries from the Worcestershire local authority, was clean.
Adam Kent, a Worcestershire councillor for the Wythall area, revealed the problem in a photo he posted on social media on March 21 which was later widely shared.
In Tyseley, agency worker Mohammed said he was woken up in the early hours to queuing cars and people loudly dumping their rubbish at the spot.
The 55-year-old said: ‘There’s been people dumping rubbish there since 4 am this morning.
‘People have been wheeling their bins down all night long, throwing the rubbish in the car park.’
John Davis, 70, said while the collection spots are a good idea they just act as a breeding ground for rats and other pests.
He said: ‘I’m not happy. As you can see this is ridiculous now. Something has got to be done about it.
‘I’ve lived here all my life. This is a good idea, it has to happen. It’s got to happen in most areas now.
‘It can’t carry on like this with rats and the lot coming, I’m guessing there’s more rats now.
‘You’ve got to get rid of waste, that’s the bare minimum. I’m moving out of Birmingham, over to Solihull, because of the area. Things have changed.’
These bin walkouts could turn Birmingham into a third-world country because things are not going to improve that much. Although, saying that, aren’t we a third-world country already?
Immigrants are turning our cities into a third-world state – these rats haven’t just materialised overnight, but then this is what diversity and multiculturalism bring.
Rats are generally not aggressive and will try to avoid humans, but if they’re cornered or feel threatened, they may bite in self-defence and there lies the problem. Rats are known carriers of various diseases that can be transmitted to humans, including leptospirosis, hantavirus and rat bite fever.
Large illegal immigrants are taking over our country and bringing their diseases with them, and then there are the striking bin men bringing in the dregs of the dregs. ‘We hate being surrounded by dirty vermin, said one rat to the other.’
Sometimes I do worry more about illegal immigrants than the rats because illegals bring in diseases that we have no idea about, at least with rats we know what they harbour.
Perhaps they should leave their rubbish in council offices instead, that might accomplish something. But wait! Until they announce the plague is back, then getting everyone to wear face masks again. There will probably be an emergency rat vaccination for added protection, and not for just us, but for the rats as well.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 