Budapest puts up a fight against rats

Budapest’s municipal intends to spend more than 1.6 billion forints (EUR 5.3m) between 2018 and 2022 to keep out the rats, according to InfoRádió. The bill concerning this issue is debated on Wednesday.

Both the health care law of 1997 and the municipal operational law of 2011 declares that settlements must initiate epidemic prevention acts including the extermination of mosquitos, roaches and rodents, especially rats.

The bill states that in 40 installments of the 8 social institutions in Budapest – on more than 150,000 square meters – roach extermination is executed.

The three types of extermination mentioned – mosquito, roach and rat – have a 243 million-forint budget in Budapest between 2012 and 2017.

Chairman of Budapest Residential Representative Association Attila Szécsi told InfoRádió that, while there were not many rats in the inner areas of Budapest earlier, they are not such rarities today.

“They are hard to notice because these rodents tend to hide from humans, but it is a fact that rats are present.

For example when the sewer system needed some engineering in a residential near Széll Kálmán Square, we were stunned to see that rats were running around,” the chairman said.

Attila Szécsi said that rats were present in a much smaller scale a couple of decades ago. 

“There were no such cases in the ‘70s, ‘80s, not even in the early ‘90s. Then something happened, and we don’t know what. Earlier, rats could be found only around slaughterhouses, but those were probably rats that came along the imported goods,” he said.

According to the bill, the capitol’s municipal will spend more than 1.6 billion forints between 2018 and 2022 for rat extermination. The bill attaches the following sums for each year: 221 million forints next year, 277 million in 2021, and 285 million in 2022.

Ce: bm

Source: InfoRádió.hu