Rats in Alex.mp4

It's a rat's life in Alex: There's a plague of rats in Alexandra. This overcrowded township has poor facilities of drainage, sewage, waste collection and other infrastructural short-comings that result in unhygienic living conditions. A rat population has taken hold in an urban ecosystem well suited to them and has led to an exponential population growth even giving them a daytime visible presence. Residents say they are seeing more of them as time goes on and they're growing to be bigger and bolder. Worryingly, they have become so bold as to burrow into homes at night and nibble on babies fingers and ears. Rats eat household waste on the streets at night and in the day, live and breed beneath rubble and foundations. Activists of Alexandra set out to create awareness of the problem which resulted in "clean-up day" of the Alex streets (Sept 2010) which included the participation of residents, the Johannesburg municipality, Pikitup, metro police, health officials and more. Their efforts brought the problem to the attention of Mayoral council regional director Lisizwe Ntshinga who has given her support to the activists struggle through a working committee. It combines efforts of housing, urban recovery, water, pikitup and metro police to deal with the problem in an ongoing way. Council officials are operating an ongoing fumigation program and are co-ordinating with health officials who are monitoring the rats for disease. People relate their stories about the "amagundwan" (rats) and we ask, how can they be stopped?