What Is The Real Ratio Of Rats To People In The UK?

What Is The Real Ratio Of Rats To People In The UK?

People often quote the so-called fact that there are easily as many nibbling little rats in the UK as there humans, giving a ratio of 1:1.  But is it actually the case and what was the source of this information?

The first reference to this was in the book named 'The Rat Problem' written by the author by the name of WR Boelter in the year of 1909.  In the tome he outlines how he bravely asked a significant proportion of farm dwellers their opinion. Was probably reasonable to consider that there is certainly one rat per individual acre of arable land?  They thought this was a fair estimate, although it sounds as though this may have been a loaded question.

The human population of the United Kingdom at this time was 40m and there were 40m acres of arable land giving a ratio of about 1:1.

Recently the famous Dr Dave Cowan made a more accurate estimate. He took up to the minute data and divided the rat's habitat into individualised areas. These included sewers, urban and country regions to make a more highly accurate sounding estimate of 10.5m.

The UK population is currently over 60m giving a ratio of about 6:1.

Rats teeth grow constantly throughout their short lives and they need to work hard to wear them down.  As a result they do around 9 billion dollars worth of financial damage to property every year.  This new invention should help to prevent this.  It is rat-deterrent flooring which actively repels rats, keeping your property safe.