Rats have begun running rampant in cyclone-hit areas. Photo: 123RF
As cyclone-hit communities rebuild their lives, pests have been making the most of the chaos, destruction and abandoned homes.
Tired of seeing rats have free reign, residents are taking matters into their own hands with funding from Predator Free New Zealand.
Weeks on from Cyclone Gabrielle, some North Island communities still face road closures, abandoned homes, slips and a long recovery.
In Piha, that has also meant more rats.
Pest Free Piha operations manager Peter Hosking said it had become a real issue.
"It's well known after disasters like this that rodents get a free ride for a while, and they don't need long to double and then double again in numbers.
"People at Piha were seeing more rats than they have seen for some time."
The group has more than 400 people involved in pest control.
Much of their trapping network was destroyed by slips and flooding.
Pest Free Piha is one of 13 community groups that have received a portion of $50,000 from the Predator Free New Zealand Trust for grassroots pest control.
Hosking said the funding was perfectly timed.
They gave away more than 40 traps a few weeks ago, and others that a local retirement village made up are gone too.
"This has come at a very good time for us. We'll be sending raw materials to Pinesong and we'll buying in more traps, and we'll be doing it straight away."
Further north, a residents-only cordon remains in place at Muriwai where slips wiped out properties.
Dozens of properties were damaged in Muriwai. Photo: RNZ / Tom Taylor
Predator Free Muriwai organiser Richard Wright said rats had also been a problem there too.
"People ... literally could grab what they could carry when the emergency alert came to evacuate. This is a few days after the storm when they realised the slips were still moving.
"There's rotting food. It's a good environment for rats at the moment."
Roughly 250 houses in the village were involved in backyard baiting, but he said a lot were now red stickered and it was unknown how many traps and baits remained.
Wright's family was not directly affected but he said many people had been displaced and dispersed into the surrounding area, unable to return home.
They would run trap-building workshops using predator-free funding, which he hoped would also help to ease the isolation.
"Getting the community behind this initiative will really help to bring people back and get people together socially and just do something good for the Muriwai environment."
Predator Free New Zealand Trust chief executive Jessi Morgan said they were surprised to get applications from Piha and Muriwai.
"Just because we thought they would have so many other things to focus on at the moment, getting people back in houses and getting their lives back on track.
"But what we've heard from those communities is that they're really keen to have something positive to rally around to create the connection between the community again."
They have funded about 100 communities and 33,000 traps for back yards over five years, offering between $2000 and $5000 in the latest funding round.
"For the Trust, targeting backyards is an area no one else really supports so us supporting trapping within people's backyards and then connecting in to a wider community network really helps people engage with the predator-free movement and feel like they're making a difference and contributing."
The next round of Predator Free funding will open later this year.
