The Bussum district has been suffering from rats for ten years due to leaking sewers

When Martijn Burger smelled a strange smell in his house about ten years ago, he did not understand where it came from. He thought the garbage had been inside for too long, but after a lot of searching he came to the basement. His crawl space turned out to be full of dead rats. “The whole house smelled like it. It starts with a light odor and after a day it is an extreme corpse odor,” Martijn told NH.

Ten years later the rats are still not gone. “It happens about five times a year, then I put on another paper overall, gloves, face mask and then I look in the crawl space for dead rats.”

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According to Burger, the cause of the rat plague is a leaking sewer, but it took a while before he could convince the municipality of this. After a lot of wrangling, consultation and ultimately a video inspection, the municipality also concluded that the sewerage is as leaky as a basket. “The roots of trees make holes in the sewer system, giving rats free rein. They leave the sewer, dig their way up and then make tunnels underground in the neighborhood.”

Mopping with the tap open

Years later, Burger is right about the municipality, but he is still faced with a leaking sewer and a rat plague. According to him, the problem is only being pushed forward. “The pest control service sets up bait boxes to catch the rats, but that is just mopping with the tap open.”

The municipality of Gooise Meren reports to NH that the problem is known and that the sewerage system is broken or leaking in several places. The worst damage will be tackled next year. The municipality aims to start maintenance work before the summer.