'There's a rat in my kitchen what am I gonna do?" - these words are catchy when sung by reggae band UB40. In reality, the rats are not only in the kitchen - they are everywhere.
Joburg has been inundated with rats, and sadly there is no sign of the Pied Piper to lead them away. Dozens of new pest control companies have opened for business but there will be no end in sight for this rodent epidemic until Joburg cleans up its act - literally.
Coincidentally, this week Executive Mayor Amos Masondo announced a R100-million plan to tackle the filth in the inner city.
Previous city sanitation projects have failed to make an impact on litter and refuse collection, and booming squatter camps have contributed to ideal breeding conditions for these rodents to thrive and breed.
Apparently, stories are circulating at suburban dinner parties about vicious "giant" rats, and now the rat, as a topic of conversation, has usurped the poor Parktown prawn.
But pest controller Ronald Springfield, of Exclusive Pest & Weed Control Services, assures us that the common rats in the business are not "giants".
He says: "I think it is an urban legend. They are really no longer than 35cm and they merely look bigger in cold weather because their fur grows longer."
Springfield, who has been in the pest-extermination game for 34 years and opened his own company in 1989, says rats have been a problem in cities everywhere in the world, but he believes the problem is getting out of hand locally.
"I won't lie and say there have never been rats before, there have always been rats. But I am nowadays frequently getting calls for rats and the calls are not only for the inner city and the townships, the problems are in Sandton and beyond."
He is happy to say that most rats he has encountered are not vicious. Only once when he was setting up rat-traps, did he encounter a big male rat that hissed at him like a snake.
"I think they prefer to run away but, like any animal, if they are cornered and feel threatened they may be vicious."
In March, the Joburg metro police went to tow away some abandoned cars, in which rats had made nests.
Township residents claimed the rodents living in the wrecks were attacking people who walked too close to them.
Springfield says that the residents of informal settlements suffer the worst.
"They really do not get serviced adequately by the council, and the rubbish piles up for weeks. In a few weeks, there could be many rat litters born.
"The squatters build their rooms with whatever materials they can find, and there are many places for rats to creep in. It is common to hear of rats crawling over people sleeping on the floor at night."
Residents in the informal settlements resort to buying "two step", a powerful poison that kills most animals.
The problem is that it could be fatal if ingested by toddlers. The poison often used by burglars to kill watchdogs lives up to its name, as it kills quickly.
Springfield says he often switches chemicals to make sure that the rats don't become immune to the poison.
He says: "In the late 1980s we stopped using warfarin (a blood anti-coagulant) because they were not responding.
"Now we have got some effective poisons like Racumen paste that kills the rats without injuring any secondary animals that may eat the rat, like dogs or owls."
He recently attended to a rat problem in Mayfair at a busy takeaway restaurant, where the rats walked around the kitchen brazenly. They did not even scatter when people entered the room.
He explains: "I used tracking powder, which is a poisoned powder that sticks to their feet. When they groom themselves, it goes into their system and they die."
Springfield says that rats, ironically, have clean habits, but they carry parasitic diseases from fleas, and have germs in their gut and on their fur, which is greasy.
They also spread disease through their saliva.
He adds that it is a fallacy that rats that ingest poisons die from thirst.
Springfield says rats drink a lot of water anyway; they die due to organ failure over a period of three days.
He says: "The problem with rats is that they breed prolifically, one rat may have up to 200 babies a year.
"If those young procreate then you can imagine the numbers we are talking - this is an epidemic!"
But others believe the threat of a plague similar to the bubonic plague, caused by rats is the Middle Ages, is exaggerated.
A Durban study by city health officials and the European Union (EU) in 2006 has allayed fears that a disease outbreak is imminent.
Blood samples from shack dwellers sparked fears that rats were spreading potentially deadly diseases to humans.
The survey was part of an internationally funded project to prevent the spread of disease by rodents and other pests.
The "Ratzooman" project tested the diseases carried by rodents in four African countries and looked at blood samples from residents.
The results showed there was no evidence of the much-feared bubonic plague.
Durban says its vector control programme ranks with the best in the world. Wax poison bait is used in places such as stormwater drains.
Joburg's health and environmental safety office is not ignoring the problem.
They say they have been conducting ongoing education to inform residents about hygiene.
All refuse is collected regularly, including old beds, rubbish and pieces of wood.
Pest Control Operators conduct house-to-house inspections to enforce public health bylaws and to discourage residents from keeping disused material inside their yards.
They serve notices on the occupants, requiring them to clean up any refuse and take necessary steps to eliminate rodents.
A reasonable time is given to property occupants to comply with the requirements where rodents are found.
The department says they have also put up "no dumping" signs on vacant lots to discourage illegal dumping.
But the onus is on individuals to place their own rat traps. The council says that any serious rat infestation can be reported to the People's Centre on 011-375-5555.
Some environmentalists say the rats should be disposed of in a natural manner. Their natural predators are cats and owls, but studies have shown that a cat will catch up to only 35 rats a year, not really a dent in the problem.
We feed our cats and they are not motivated to catch prey for food like they did many years ago.
Owls, which are excellent rat catchers, do not like to live in urban habitats - they prefer the wild.
The rat problem is widespread: even prisons have had problems with rats. Last year, magistrates were hopping in their gowns at the Kempton Park regional court, and prisoners in the holding cells were complaining bitterly.
A pest control company was called in to control the problem.
You could say the prisoners were in good company, but the local court awarded an extermination order - for the rats, that is.
Interestingly, rats were not always treated with contempt. The legendary golfer Gary Player recalls that rats were once a miner's best friend.
In a magazine interview with Golf Week, Player says: "My father was a miner deep in the gold mines. He told me once that a miner's best friend was the rat because when the rats took off running, it meant a cave-in was imminent.
"Every day the workers gave the rats bits of their sandwiches as tribute."
Rats no longer have to scavenge for food, they have gourmet rubbish heaps to choose from and even an organisation to protect them.
In the United States, www.rathelp.org is dedicated to rat lovers and others who may misunderstand the charming vermin.
One former Joubert Park resident, who asked not to be named, says that, in the late 1980s he had a flat opposite the railway track.
In a week he had caught 90 rats and mice in his flat. He released them into the nearby old-age home, where no one would harm them. What about the terrified old ladies?
Springfield has a passion for pest control and says he has seen some really gruesome sights.
He once had a call-out late at night from a woman near Montecasino, Fourways, who had had a rat run over her face while she was in bed.
A few years ago, he was called out to Chris Hani (formerly Baragwanath) mortuary, where rats had infiltrated the fridges where the corpses were kept.
The fridges were insulated with thick layers of polystyrene and the rats had burrowed into this and made nests inside, they then went into the fridges foraging for food.
Most relatives were not too happy to receive the bodies of their dearly departed without lips, noses and eyes.
Springfield is not shaken by this macabre memory. He says to be in the pest control game, you have to be tough. He was once also called to Sebokeng hospital, where the rats were irritating the disabled, who couldn't chase them away.
Rats were eating their food and even gnawing at their plaster casts.health menace: Unhygienic litter and booming squatter settlements in Joburg are ideal conditions for the breeding of rodents.
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