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Jan 2024

News

The black-belt ratcatcher patrolling the district with his cute assassin

Published: 21 Jan 2024, 08:00 GMT

by John Grainger

Rob Loft, owner of pest control firm Yor-Pest, with son Cory and their ratting terrier, Patch.

No-one likes rats. Well, almost no-one. There is a small band of rat-fanciers who will tell you that rats laugh when tickled and sing after sex, but for most of us rats are unwelcome visitors.

They're destructive, they can carry pathogens such as salmonella, Weil’s disease and hantavirus, and they can be unnervingly clever – they've even been known to uses sticks to spring traps before making off with the bait.

Fortunately, there are people who are happy to earn a living as ratcatchers, finding them, outwitting them and, invariably, imposing the "ultimate penalty".

One of them is pest-controller Rob Loft. He runs Yor-Pest, ridding properties of moles, mice, moths, ants, squirrels and rats, across York and most of the Harrogate district.

Rob is a former karate champion with six national titles under his (black) belt, so it’s tempting to imagine him dispatching rats with a swift chop from his lethal hands, but he has a far more potent weapon. Patch is a four-year-old Parson Russell terrier who has ratting in the blood – his father used to clear out farms in north Wales. The cutest of assassins, he sniffs out where the rats are hiding and, once they're flushed out, kills them with one bite-and-shake. Rob says:

“We need Patch because we’re very much anti-poison. You can’t ever tell where a rat might perish, and you really don’t want one crawling into a tight space and dying there. You can always tell if you walk into a house where a rat has died underneath the floorboards – the smell almost knocks you out.”

Rob and his sons, Jay and Cory, see about 10 properties a day and most of those calls concern rats, in the winter at least – in the summer, it’s wasps. Rob is accredited by the British Pest Control Association and needless to say, he knows a thing or two about rats. He says:

“People often think only dirty people have rats, but that’s not true – a rat will go into anyone’s home. They’re not confined to certain areas or towns. They’re everywhere, nicely spread out. I wouldn’t want to tarnish anywhere in particular.

“That said, rats don’t really live in houses. They need to eat and drink, so they come and go. They don’t come into the house looking for food – although they’re chancers, so if there are some apples in a bowl or food out on a worktop, they’ll have it.

“I’ve known a rat to eat a 10oz fillet steak, and another to eat a whole packet of biscuits. But mostly, they’re just looking for somewhere warm – cold weather brings them in – with something to chew to keep their teeth in shape.”

Food and warmth are things we all need, but no species is quite so well adapted to finding them – with the possible exception of humans. Actually, in some ways rats are superhuman.

Imagine someone who could jump onto a house roof or leap across the road from a standing start. Who could fall 400 feet without injury, tread water for two days and produce over a thousand offspring in a year. Marvel or DC would make a comic strip about them – if they haven’t already.

But, proportionately speaking, a rat can do all these things, and more. They can hold their breath, fast for days and chew through concrete and aluminium. And as burrowing animals, their digging skills are impressive. Rob says:

“Country rats will often dig down the side of a house and come in via cracks and cavities. But rats in towns and cities get in more through breaches in drains, popping up under the kitchen floor, and then find their way into the roofspace through the cavity walls.”

Cory adds:

“Even when there’s no cavity wall, they’ll find a way. They’ll follow the fenceline and jump up under the roof tiles, or they’ll climb up any vegetation that’s growing up the property – ivy's like a climbing frame for rats.”

For those rats that Patch can't reach, Rob uses traps. Which bait to use is a matter of much debate. Pest controllers seem to agree that cheese is strictly for the cartoons; more popular options include bacon and Nutella. Rob’s failsafe choices are porridge oats to lure rodents in, and a trap baited with peanut butter and liquorice allsorts to finish them off. (Bassetts only – cheaper alternatives crumble off the bait-spike.)

These can prove irresistible and between them, Patch's teeth and Rob’s traps can account for as many as 15 or 20 rats in a week – up to six in a day.

Occasionally, the rat itself can be the bait. Cory says:

“We trapped one rat that had come across another rat in one of our traps, and eaten it. We only found the backbone – it was like a butcher’s shop. That rat was huge.”

But it’s not all traps and terriers – there's technology involved too. Rob and the boys use motion-sensor cameras to find out where the point of entry is, and special dust which shows up under ultraviolet light, so they can track the footprints to see where the rats are going. Rob says:

“Rats tend to be neophobic – they don’t like new things – so they’re especially wary of changes to their environment. Some people are in such a hurry to get rid of their rats that they want to put down 10 traps, but that’s too much change for a rat – they won’t touch any of them. Instead, we just put down one or two traps. It’s not ‘50 traps, catch 50 rats’, it’s ‘one or two traps, catch 50 rats’.”

As a result, it can take between 10 days and five weeks to clear a property of rats. Cory says:

“Terraced houses are far more difficult than other types of housing, as they share roofspace with their neighbours, and once rats are in there, it’s a nice big home for them.”

For many people, poking their head into a rat-infested attic is the stuff of nightmares – it's no accident that the prospect of his face sharing a cage with hungry rats in Room 101 was what broke Winston in George Orwell’s 1984 – so doesn’t it ever make Rob break into a cold sweat?

“No," he says. "I’ve had rats run over me and brush past my face, but they’ve never gone to bite me – although they would, if they felt there was no way out.

“My only nightmare is wasps. We have to deal with them in summer, and you’re often sharing a hot, confined space with a nest of 2,000 wasps, all wanting to get at you. Now, that can be hairy.”

Rat Do's and Don'ts

DO:

contact a pest-controller at the first sign of rats – property-owners have a legal obligation under the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 to keep premises rodent-free

check your property for signs of entry, such as grease-marks around gaps in brickwork

wash your recycling before putting it out for collection – rats love dirty tins and jars

rat-proof your compost bin by installing it on top of a layer or two of wire mesh

keep climbers and creepers well away from roof tiles

get chewed wiring repaired – live wires can cause fires

remove bird-feeders at the first sign of rats

DON’T:

leave rubbish, especially kitchen waste, outside in binbags

leave damaged drains unrepaired

spread seed on the ground for the birds

ignore signs of rats, hoping they’ll go away – they breed fast