What would you do if a rat the size of a cat was in your home and terrorizing your family?
A family in south Dublin was forced to call pest control after a rat, later found to measure at 24 inches from nose to tail, couldn’t be trapped.
Marcus Giusti, of Total Pest Control, said it was one of the biggest rats he has ever caught, but agreeing with recent reports from the UK and Europe, he says the pests are growing bigger and their numbers are swelling too.
‘I think it’s a lot to do with climate and hygiene,’ he told Irish Independent.
‘If people leave their household bins overflowing and in disarray, they are essentially creating a food source for these animals.’
‘We really weren’t anticipating the rat would be that big. The trap didn’t have any impact on him so we had to stick our head up where the speaker was located and remove it that way,’ he told independent.ie.
Could we have a mutant-rat epidemic on our hands? Possibly.
Ireland is not the only place to see an increase in large rodents, with towns in England and the U.S. as well as Sweden reporting several cases of ‘monster rats’.
On Thursday this week, Max the Jack Russell hit the headlines after catching an over-sized rat during a walk in a park in the Kent town of Royal Tunbridge Wells.
Both scares come just days after pest controllers in Birmingham reported more than 5,000 sightings of large rats, some as big as cats, in the past year.
Last month the 19inch Viking-rat of Solna, Sweden, made news around the globe after it was found in a flat in suburban Stockholm.
Earlier this year, pest control experts warned that rats are mutating and developing an immunity to tradition poisons.
The pesticides wipe out weaker animals, meaning that those that survive are able to withstand increasing amounts of poison.
For the love of God, please don’t let these rats pop up in more US cities.
[via Daily Mail]
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