00:00You're certainly right to say that the urine is an issue.
00:05There's a disease called Viles disease, a type of leptospirosis,
00:08a bacterial disease that is spreading their urine.
00:11And yes, they can spread the urine far and wide.
00:13And if anything is wet, any of the rubbish is wet,
00:17then handle it only with gloves, I would recommend,
00:20because the bacteria can be picked up on your hands
00:25and you can then spread it to food you're eating or touch your lips.
00:28Or if it gets in through a cut, then it can give you the disease,
00:32Viles disease, which can affect you very badly and it can be fatal.
00:38So that is a key disease risk.
00:41But there are other diseases that they spread as well,
00:43the likes of Salmonella and Hantavirus and things.
00:47So, yeah, in their droppings, those will be full of other bacteria.
00:52So any contamination of your hands or, you know, if they get into buildings,
00:57then that is a serious health risk.
01:01Because isn't Hantavirus, isn't that what they think Gene Hackman's wife died of?
01:05And isn't that sort of airborne as well?
01:08Yes, yes, that's more airborne.
01:11That is from dry dropping.
01:13So with the hot weather we've been having, the droppings dry out.
01:17It's possible that the virus can be given off airborne
01:20airborne if indeed those rats in that area have got Hantavirus.
01:25So that is a possible problem as well.
01:28Is there a way of sort of stopping this?
01:32Because once you get an outbreak of rats, it's very difficult to actually get rid of them.
01:36Do Birmingham have much chance in kind of stopping this from getting a lot worse?
01:42It's going to be a phenomenal problem now to get rid of the rats once they've got established.
01:48They need three things to live.
01:50They need a harbour, somewhere to live, some shelter.
01:53They need the food and they need a water supply.
01:56And at the moment they've got all that.
01:58So they'll be breeding freely.
02:00They'll be rapidly expanding in number because they do breed very quickly,
02:05very short gestation period and short turnaround of generations.
02:08And so the numbers will be getting out of hand.
02:12And they will then, as was correctly stated a few minutes ago,
02:17if the rubbish is finally moved, they will move into people's houses.
02:21They'll find ways in through holes and folks in the houses.
02:27And they'll start stealing food wherever they can.
02:31And so they will cause further problems, not just from spreading diseases,
02:36but the likes of fire risks from chewing electric cables
02:39because they do need to gnaw to keep their teeth filed down.
02:43Oh, really? That's why they do it.
02:44And very briefly, because we're running out of time,
02:46is there anything that the people of Birmingham or anyone who has rat infestation around them
02:51can do to keep themselves safe?
02:55Absolutely.
02:55They'll need to call a pest controller to get them to come and put some controls down.
03:00And I would advise that if they've got rats in the vicinity,
03:04that they're extremely careful with their hygiene.
03:06They wash their hands regularly.
03:08They wear waterproof gloves if they're handling anything that might have got wet contamination.
03:13They're very careful not to contaminate any of the food they're eating, etc.
03:21So, yes, there's certain things they can do.
03:24But also, try and keep the litter covered wherever they possibly can
03:29so that the rats can't access any food that's in it.
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