Rat catchers say Sydney vermin problem ‘worst in 20 years’

Rats have always been an issue in Sydney, but a pest expert said she’s never seen it this bad in her 22 years on the job, with the rodents chewing through doors and electrical wires, and even causing a backyard pool to collapse.

Sydney’s rodent problem is the worst it’s been in decades, according to pest experts, with destructive rats causing backyard pools to collapse, chewing holes through wooden doors and gnawing at electrical wires, as scores of them run rampant in the CBD and inner west.

Construction in the city combined with an overhauled bin collection system has sent rats to the suburbs in search of food and new homes, and while there have always been rats in Sydney, pest controller Nathaly Haeren said she’s never seen it this bad in her 22 years on the job.

“It’s the worst it’s ever been,” she said.

“October and March is when we usually see a bit of an increase because of breeding season and around winter.”

“But this year it’s been non-stop, we’ve seen them all year in large numbers.”

Nathaly Haeren said rats had been ‘very problematic’ in 2024. Picture Thomas Lisson

A rat caught at a Sydney property. Picture: Pesty Girls

Ms Haeren, who owns Pesty Girls pest management, said most of her calls were coming from homes and commercial properties in the inner west, with rats recently causing a residential pool to collapse.

“They are being quite destructive,” she said. “I have never used so many buckets of bait in my life.”

“Rats need to gnaw constantly because their teeth grow continuously … so they are chewing electrical wires, chewing through wooden doors.

“Last month rats had tunnelled under a pool in Lewisham and caused it to collapse. That’s very out of the ordinary.”

Inner West Council’s decision to change weekly red bin collection to fortnightly is being blamed as a factor, with one councillor saying the change had fuelled the “rat plague”.

The change by the council, run by Labor Mayor Darcy Byrne, encouraged residents to put organic food waste in their green bins, but independent councillor Victor Macri said the change had led to residents leaving their bins full of rotting food on the street.

Residents have blamed overflowing bins, like these in St Peters this week, for an increase in rats. Picture: Thomas Lisson

“People don’t want to bring them back onto their property, so that’s adding to the problem,” he said.

“It’s not working properly, not everyone uses the FOGO (food organics and garden organics) bins, so when rubbish is left and not picked up, it just brings the vermin and rats to people’s homes.”

While residents can “opt in” for weekly red bin collection, just over 3000 of the area’s 48,000 households have done so.

A spokesperson for Inner West Council said the bin changes had not led to an increase in rats and “the prevalence of rats has generally been consistent”.

“Council has not experienced any increase in rodents in the inner west since the introduction of our food recycling service, this is because residents’ food scraps are still being collected weekly from their green lid bin,” they said.

A rat roams a laneway in Surry Hills. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Locals in Sydney’s south have identified Ramsgate Beach as a rat hotspot, and Circular Quay in the CBD, Cambridge Park in the west, and Kirribilli in the north as problem areas.

“They are everywhere after dark, it’s disgusting,” one local posted about Ramsgate Beach.

“Kirribilli teeming with rats. Foul,” another wrote online.

In Cambridge Park one resident said: “I have spent so much money on bait over the years and lost $1000s in valuable items from my shed.”

David Neale, who runs RIP Pest Control, said the rats were “destructive beasts” that were no longer “feeling the fear factor”.

“There is no shortage of jobs for us … we do a lot of work in the Wollondilly area but go all the way to Crows Nest and Naremburn, where we are seeing a lot of rats.”

Mr Neale said he had seen the pests cause $40,000 worth of damage to a car, after chewing the wiring, and even seen them gnaw through a Colourbond fence.

Rats ate through this roof insulation in Sydney. Picture: Supplied/ Pesty Girls

In videos going viral on social media and TikTok, brazen rats can be seen running through Circular Quay in the middle of the day, darting in front of people to drink from puddles in The Rocks and scurrying through parks at night.

“They aren’t scared,” Ms Haeren said. “And they are becoming really used to humans.”

In the City of Sydney Council area – which covers about 26.15 square kilometres – 587 rat reports were made by residents last financial year, up from 442 in the 2023 financial year and 305 in the 2022 financial year.

However council said there had been “no significant change” in rat activity.

Data compiled for The Sunday Telegraph by online contractors’ website Hipages has revealed NSW rodent control jobs jumped during the 2021 Covid year, and again in 2023, up 42 per cent on the year prior.

Owner of MOA Contract Shooting Shaun Bankowski said rat numbers were “very consistent” and hadn’t dropped off.

“If they’ve got a regular food source they will get a lot bigger and they keep coming back,” he said.

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Originally published as Rat catchers say Sydney vermin problem ‘worst in 20 years’