Rats are getting bigger and bolder
| Published date | 03 April 2024 |
| Publication title | Huddersfield Daily Examiner |
His life is far from a Tom and Jerryesque cavalcade of chaos, but he claims rats are particularly 'crafty' and becoming more complacent.
Ex-Lance Bombardier Kieran, 29, estimates he's killed about 50,000 rats since 2018.
He opened up about how his work has unfortunately attracted death threats and abusive messages, targeting not only himself but also his four-year-old daughter.
Kieran spoke about his life as a rat catcher: about training up his two dogs, terriers Poppy and Penny, to catch the rodents, how he tackles homes and farmland, how crafty rats can be and the biggest infestations and rodents he's come across.
Kieran warns: "Rats are getting bigger, bolder and more brazen.
"They're less bothered about humans, cats or anything."
He says more food waste on the streets and less pest control during the pandemic emboldened rats.
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The biggest rat Kieran has ever caught was 22 inches head-to-tail, about double the
kieran size of a chihuahua's body length.
And he says most rats he catches are a whopping 18 inches in length.
Kieran runs Vermicure in Robinhood and set up Facebook page Yorkshire Rat Pack, which is a collective of pest controllers across the county, who share jobs and help each other out.
It includes about five more ratcatchers, who Kieran says over the years have become like a "brotherhood," comparing their bond and sense of camaraderie to the friendships he developed in the army.
The group deals with rat problems in domestic and commercial settings, mainly in agricultural land.
The Yorkshire Rat Pack share jobs across the whole of the county, taking on defined patches.
Kieran tends to cover Leeds, Wakefield, Castleton, Ponefract, Doncaster and Barnsley.
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Kieran also deals with fly, bird, moth, squirrel and mice infestations. The biggest infestation he's discovered in a house was 22 rats.
He spoke about one horrific job when a woman had removed her toilet, hadn't capped the hole off, and rats were going back and forth from the sewer into the house, freely.
The biggest infestation he came across was at a farm in Hull.
A new farmer had just taken over the farm and a lot of corn had been left to rot by the previous owners.
Kieran says when he walked across the land, "There were hundreds and hundreds and...
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