The feet of the black bag mountains have been nibbled away by an ever-expanding population of rats, which residents claim are growing to the size of cats.
He wields a large stick found on the ground which he uses to poke at the rubbish mound, hoping to entice one of the rodents out. No luck this time. But even if you can’t see the rats, traces of their presence are everywhere.
Nine weeks into the bin strikes that have ravaged the city, the towers of rubbish appear unlikely to be cleared any time soon. Unions on Thursday said indefinite industrial action would remain in place after failing to make a breakthrough in talks with Birmingham City Council.
Some of the workers would also see a substantial pay cut as they move down to a grade two position.
Martin Curry runs his own firm, MC Environmental Pest Control (Photo: The i Paper)Nine weeks into the bin strikes that have ravaged the city, the towers of rubbish appear unlikely to be cleared any time soon (Photo: The i Paper)The union claimed it was part of a plan to directly replace employed staff with an “insecure agency workforce”. The council denies the claim and that it made the sackings.
While this has been the case for some areas, other residents said it had been “weeks” since they had seen a lorry, leaving them “no choice but to fly tip”.
“I had a lady who had been keeping black bags in her kitchen because she had nowhere to put them,” he says. “She had mice in her house and they were chewing through the black bags.”
In Small Heath Park, a mile from Birmingham’s city centre, a small boy scoots alongside his mother, weaving in and out of the refuse piles. Black bag upon black bag sits outside each home overlooking the green.
“This is all rat teeth marks,” Martin says, pointing to more rodent activity on the polyethylene bins. “Their teeth are constantly growing so they have to constantly chew to file them down.
But for pet control firms such as Martin’s, they are unable to do much about the unwanted inhabitants in public areas because of regulations around the poisons they’re allowed to use.
“If a rat was to pull away any bait out of there – which look like sweets – and it’s left on the roadside and a child picks one of them up and sticks it in its mouth, I’m liable. Or a cat – the last thing you want to do is kill somebody’s cat.”
Martin says he has been ‘inundated’ with work because of the bin strikes (Photo: The i Paper)Residents claim rats are growing to the size of cats in Birmingham as the strike continues (Photo: The i Paper)Dispatching pests and collections are only allowed when made “as humane as possible and in one quick blow”.
“I tried to stay as still as I possibly could and took a little truncheon from my bag and gave it a little whack on the back of the head.”
Martin pulls his van over again, this time to a fly-tipping site where locals have been dumping rubbish.
He suspects the situation would not have been allowed to happen if the dispute was taking place in London instead. “Keir Starmer wouldn’t have it outside his front door,” he suggests
We later come across a dead rat – the closest we will get to spotting one of the live rodents infesting the city.
“More bin bags there,” he points out, driving onwards. “They’ll have rats there, I bet. You always have issues with those bin sheds,” he points out again.
Martin introduces Jimmy Doris, an Irishman now living in Birmingham and working for one of the firms he provides with pest control services.
“And people are just chucking stuff on the ground instead of the bin, so I think we [Birmingham residents] are as much to blame as the council.”
For months, household rubbish, fly-tipping and bulky waste have been building up across the city (Photo: The i Paper)From April, Birmingham residents will start to have waste collections reduced from weekly to fortnightly (Photo: The i Paper)
Police were called to the scene and shut the area down due to safety concerns. Those who had queued hoping to finally get rid of their rubbish were warned they would be fined if they left anything behind.
Again he rummages around the stack, pointing out mice and rat droppings as well as teeth marks.
“There’s just fly tipping everywhere, and furniture dumped,” she said, explaining that she had heard nothing from the council about when a collection would be made. “That pile is just going to keep building.”
In a statement, Birmingham City Council said: “This escalation of industrial action will mean greater disruption to residents – despite the fair and reasonable offer that the council made to Unite the Union.”
Councillor Robert Alden, leader of the Conservative Group, said Birmingham had been “blighted by almost 800 days of bin disputes in the last eight years because of Labour’s complete failure to resolve equal pay“.
He added: “The impact of their latest failure has left Birmingham residents with a double whammy, paying more in council tax while seeing their streets overrun with rubbish and rats.”
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