A host of initiatives to tackle the city's rat problem have fallen by the wayside, but the City says it is still in the fight. A study, meanwhile, offers a peek into the daily lives and dietary habits of Jozi's rats.

There was once a showdown between the City of Joburg and a bunch of inventors and it came down to who had the better body count.

The inventors had come up with a simple rat trap that worked like a swing-top dustbin lid. The lid was placed flush with the ground, and bait - a chicken bone or piece of pap - positioned in the middle of the lid. When a rat walked across the lid its weight caused the door to open and it would fall into a bucket filled with water.

It was called the Hamelin trap and in 2018 there was a competition between its creators and the Joburg City Council. The battleground was Msawawa, an informal settlement near Honeydew, which had a big rat problem. The rules were simple: whoever collected the most dead rats won.

After two weeks the score ended on 81 rats to 21. The Hamelin had a kill ratio of 4-1 over the City's traditional wire traps.

But the Hamelin, like a host of other initiatives like the Integrated Rodent Control Project pilot, fell by the wayside and Joburg still has a rat problem. However, the City says it is still in...