Want the top news headlines sent to your inbox daily? Sign up to our FREE newsletter below Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Jumping ferociously at the camera, this huge rat is just one of swarms taking over the city centre and suburbs.

Complaints to North councils have rocketed with warm winters and more rubbish being blamed for the massive rise.

Complaints from worried householders and businesses in Newcastle soared by as much as two-thirds last year with one area seeing an 88 per cent rise in sightings.

Pest control fielded 2,701 calls to do with rats from January to October 2014 - an average of nearly nine enquiries per day.

At that rate the total for the entire year would be over 3,200, which would result in a yearly increase of around two-thirds.

The ten-month total alone is up 39 per cent on the 1,940 who called about the rodents for the whole of 2013.

Rats are the only type of pest the council removes from homes for free.

Interest was highest in the NE6 postcode, which covers Walker and Byker, where 533 calls were put from January to October last year.

In NE5, which covers Westerhope, the number of calls about the rodents rocketed 88% from 205 in 2013 to 386 last year to October.

In Durham there were 756 applications to the council’s pest control to deal with rats up until October. For the whole of 2013 there were 874.

We used freedom of information laws to obtain the data. Other North East councils did not respond to our request, or didn’t hold the relevant data.

Experts say rats have thrived in recent mild winters and are able to gorge themselves on rubbish thrown carelessly into bins and back alleyways.

Newcastle City Council is calling on people to help it in its fight to control litter and rubbish in the city in a bid to battle the problem.

A spokesperson said: “The council offers a rat treatment service, free-of-charge for residents, but we are also clear how they can help reduce this risk by keeping Newcastle, and particularly back lanes clean and not dumping rubbish.”

poll loading What should be done about the rat problem in Newcastle? 500+ VOTES SO FAR More bin collections by the Council Introduce fines for littering Restaurant owners should take more care with waste disposal Get the Pied Piper in!

The City Council pest control fielded 2,701 rat-related calls in 2014, an average of seven enquires a day.

Richard Moseley, Technical Manager for the British Pest Control Association, said: “No-one can underestimate the risks that come with rats when it comes to disease.

“Rats often move actively through sewage systems where there are a whole host of infections and bacterial organisms that they can transfer back to the surface.”

The Reverend Doctor Nicholas Buxton has expressed outrage at his struggle with vermin, with the back lane behind St. John the Baptist Church in Newcastle particularly rife with litter and food waste.

He said: “There is definitely a problem and we have an infestation, you kill them and they just keep coming back.

“This is an problem we need to deal with. We don’t want a city centre overrun with rats.”

The council is adamant that much of the responsibility for keeping places clean lies with individual effort, saying: “Residents need to use their bins correctly. These should never be left in back lanes and always returned to a property after collection, and all waste should be contained in the bins and not placed loosely or in bags next to them.

“We are encouraging people to use their blue recycling bins more frequently to reduce the amount of waste that goes into green, household waste bin”.

With council services so stretched however, many find it difficult to abide by their guidelines.

Marian Tindale, 72, of South Gosforth and a volunteer at St. John’s church said: “The council used to empty the bins around here once a week but they certainly don’t empty them nearly as often anymore.

“At St Johns you get a lot of litter and fast food lying around and that could be a problem.

“When the bins are full there is nowhere else to put the rubbish.”