“I’m afraid to open my front door, they’re everywhere,” said Mary Dore, eyeing the ground outside her house in Balsall Heath suspiciously. “They run out from under the cars when you get in, they’re going in the engines. They chewed through the cables in my son’s car, costing him god knows how much.

“There’s one street I can’t walk my dog because they come running out of the grass and the piles of rubbish. One time I screamed.”

She’s referring to rats, which have multiplied rapidly as the rubbish has piled up in an ongoing bin strike in Birmingham.

On Tuesday, it was four weeks since bin workers walked out indefinitely, after striking intermittently since January, and a day after the council declared a major incident with more than 17,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish on the streets.

Across the road from Dore’s house, two huge mounds of bin bags have accumulated and, as the weather warms up, it is starting to smell.

“It’s the smell and the germs. There’s loads of rats. And the bags are piled up outside a pharmacy, where people are going to get their medication. It’s not right,” said Dore, 61. “It has been there for weeks and it’s getting higher and higher.

“What worries me most is the sickness from the rubbish. My daughter doesn’t want to bring her children here, she doesn’t want them to catch the germs.”

Tuesday also marked the day that council tax in the city rose by 7.5%, a year after it rose by 10% in the aftermath of the city council declaring itself effectively bankrupt in 2023.

It’s a point of ire for many residents as bin collections decrease and it becomes increasingly difficult to get a slot at the local tip.

“My council tax is like £1,900, I got the shock of my life when I saw. I don’t know how I’m going to pay it. Everything has gone up,” said Asma Jabeen in Bordesley Green. “I have taken my rubbish to the tip but a lot of people aren’t doing that. I have never seen rats in my life before, but now you can see them on the ground. It’s horrible.”

“It’s a rip-off because we’re paying council tax but they’re not collecting the rubbish. They should knock some money off during the strikes,” said Ali Khan, 27, whose street now features three large piles of rubbish, which keep obstructing the road.

“It’s going to be a disaster if it goes on into the summer. People could catch a disease or something at this rate. I do feel for the workers though, sometimes it has to be done or you don’t get the results you want.”

Negotiations between the city council and the bin workers’ union, Unite, are ongoing but relations have deteriorated in recent weeks – striking workers have been told they face compulsory redundancy if they don’t accept the council’s offer of retraining or a different role on the same pay grade.

But workers say their decision to scrap the role of waste recycling and collection officer will reduce health and safety, and lead to pay cuts for those affected.

“It’s an important role. People don’t realise how dangerous the job is, the abuse we get,” said Richard Mitchell, a striking bin worker. “We’re not asking for any more money, we just want what we were already getting.”

The council said the strikers were blocking bin lorries, staffed by agency workers drafted in to help maintain the service, and this had caused the rubbish to build up across the city.

In a one-hour stint on Tuesday morning, three lorries were able to leave a depot in Tyseley, but none were able to make it to the end of the street due to striking workers walking very slowly in front of them in protest.

At least eight staffed lorries were backed up behind the depot gates, while strikers paced back and forth in front of the entrance to prevent them from leaving.

“We’re slowing them down, moving as slow as we possibly can, but we’re not stopping them,” said Mitchell. “It’s horrible to say, but the more disruption we cause, the more we can push the council and the union to get round the table and get this resolved.

“We’re sorry. It’s not fair on the residents. I’m a Birmingham resident and I’ve not had my bins collected either.”

Back in Balsall Heath, Ahmed Alsaab, 46, said it was time community representatives were given a seat around the table.

“It’s affecting our health, so if they can’t solve the problem, we should get involved – we’re the ones who are suffering,” he said, adding that it would not be forgotten that a Labour-led council had presided over the crisis. “Next election we will punish them,” he said.

He also expressed concern about the long-term damage to a city that has worked hard to improve its image in recent years.

The Birmingham Chambers of Commerce issued a statement on Tuesday warning that the strike is “undoubtedly harming the image of the city and making it less attractive for residents, visitors and businesses”.

“It’s really affecting our city’s reputation. What about the investors, what about the tourists?” said Alsaab. “It’s all over social media, the world can see it. I have friends abroad, they ask me are you living in that ‘rubbish’ city? Something needs to be done.”