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Citizen complaint of the day: A city bursting at the seams with rats
By adamg on Thu, 08/13/2020 - 9:50am
Based on complaints pouring into Boston's 311 system, we are a city overrun by rats, giant ones, spilling out of holes, shrubs and people's toilets, roaming the streets like they own the joint. Case in point, a complaint from Athens Street in South Boston:
Rats the size of small dogs down here. Please help!!!! There is a posse of them strolling the Lower End like they were here before the yuppies. I'm pretty sure one of them had a knife in his socks. Send help!!!!
Brook Avenue in Roxbury is also having issues with rodents of unusual size:
It's so bad I don't even want to let my puppy go outside. These rats are the size of bunnies and cats. This is becoming a health issue here.
A resident of Shannon Street in Brighton filed a plea for help:
There are rats going through our sidewalks, streets and yards day and night. I have reported this before, as have my neighbors and we got pamphlets about pest control left on our doors. This problem extends is over blocks and streets. We've never seen it like this and believe it is in direct relation to all the construction in the area. Our children play outside and are screaming from the rats constantly running by. This is unsafe! Please help
Down by the Joyce Kilmer Lower School in West Roxbury, a resident reports:
Rats everywhere, under cars under porch running across the road on the sidewalk there are babies adults tons of rats in this neighborhood
Meanwhile, from Hancock Street on Beacon Hill comes a disturbing report:
Constituent reports that she has noticed rats around the yard and property, and they started to come thru the sewer to the toliet.
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
Apocalypse Now
My car in Brighton keeps having all the wiring destroyed by rats. $2,000+ so far. My 311 ticket from months ago, unresolved. Traps and repellent do not work. The parks department has yet to even go near the rat warren they are coming from which I clearly pointed out in my 311 report. Need napalm.
Solutions from other Rat Cities
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/chinese-d...
They look pretty cool, too. Doesn't even obscure your street sticker. Might need a little clear window for your license plate, though.
Amazon also has solutions to keep out nature's little capitalists.
Walk over to the post office
Walk over to the post office on meridian street in East Boston anytime after dusk there are always rats scattering from the shrubbery just outside the post office.
My neighbor feeds the rats
She puts out a big bowl of rice every morning on the ground for birds, squirrels, and rats. When I spoke to here son about it (she doesn't speak English) and he translated , she started screaming at me in her language. Apparently she thought I was blaming her for rats in the neighborhood. So that went well.
I've filed several 311 complaints but if the city took any action, it didn't stop her from doing what she's doing.
My only solution is to place several rat bait boxes around my yard. And someone is feeding from my boxes. I don't know if its mice or rats. They both live around here. I know that the poison eventually works its way through the food chain and may affect predatory birds but I have to do what I have to do.
Please don't
This kills the raptors that would otherwise help your situation.
Rats go where there's food
Early in the pandemic, rats were dying in vacant areas of the city where there were no longer any commuters, restaurants were shut, and trash was way down. Now they're in more residential areas without restaurants.
Cambridge: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2020/03/03/cambridge-rats-problem
NYC: https://gothamist.com/news/move-over-pizza-rat-heres-rat-eating-rat
Paging Cary Elwes
He could deal with this problem.
Nah
He doesn't believe they exist.
HA!
You, a fool: Cary Elwes doesn't believe in Rodents of Unusual Size
Me, a wise man: You're confusing the actor with the part he played!
Good Luck
You know, if you see exactly three rats in seven days --no more and no fewer--- it's very good luck.
Its so bad
Subway rats are leaving for the suburbs via the commuter rail.
By-product of all the construction in the area(s).
Developer digs big hole in ground, rats have to find somewhere else to be.
So much for safe spaces!
Thanks for the anxiety dream fuel. As if that tank wasn't already full... ;-P
What the hell do you even do
What the hell do you even do if a rat comes through your toilet!!
you flush it back down
... and you ALWAYS CLOSE THE LID
You move to the burbs like I
You move to the burbs like I did when a rat came through my toilet in the South End
Well
The rats have moved to the burbs, too.
Chase it around until it
Chase it around until it leaves the house.
same as always
1. Poop
2. Flush
Shannon St
The Shannon Street one is true. I don't know if they're all coming from the St. E's construction or the synagogue taking forever to build its baths, or the few semi-abandoned properties due to a fire and a rehab project moving slowly or what. But there are definitely more around here than previously.
One of my idiot neighbors even "helped" by pouring gasoline down some rat holes he found. Sigh. It'd be nice if the city could bring in some professionals.
What are the causes?
Construction projects. Dig into the earth and wherever rats are living they will move on to find a new home. Has the garbage pickup changed any with more food left on the street? Or has there been less food on the street from less people buying food and then throwing on the street napkins and whatnot?
Less food
Restaurant dumpsters were a reliable buffet for the rats. With so many eateries closed and scaled-down, the food supply is diminished, and the rats are getting desperate. It's happening in all the cities.
Construction
1,000%.
I've been in my current place since Sept. 2015, and never had any rodent issues. A 38 unit monstrosity starts going up literally spitting distance from my back porch last year, and a major rat problem starts in the basement within a few months.
From what I've been told, surrounding neighbors have had similar issues. One of them actually has their place up for sale now, and I was told another tried to sell and ended up pulling it off the market with no luck (obviously not a redevelopment opportunity).
A lot of street digging ,
A lot of street digging , pipe replacements throughout all neighborhoods in Boston is the real culprit,
A lot of that
is directly tied to construction. Take a drive down Maverick St., from the Massport gate to the Square, and you'll see a pattern to all of the road patches and uneven pavement: A clear path leading from the road to new and ongoing construction in pretty much every case.
I have been doing everything
I have been doing everything to try and keep them out of my yard so makes me feel better that everyone is struggling. Been in Dorchester my whole life even lived on dot ave for some time and have never seen it this bad.
Theory: food supply is disrupted
Over the weekend a friend in Portsmouth, NH was telling us rats were showing up in the houses away from downtown. His theory is that with so many restaurants shut down or not doing as much biz as before, there's not as much food waste and the rat population is searching further afield.
Coronavirus contributes to greater rats
And what are rats for good? Bubonic plague and other diseases. If anyone thinks the bubonic plague is no longer a problem. Well, it is. Bubonic plague still erupts in different parts of the world; the last major eruption was in India in 1994.
To the Victor go the spoils....
The building next to mine in Cambridge has been a Rat Smorgasbord for several years due to incredibly bad trash management. They put lots of those rat bait stations disguised as rocks and the rats just avoided them. Then the exterminators invited Victor to live under the deck boards.
Snap, snap, snap. I haven't seen or heard a rat for several weeks now.
Rat in the toilet
might tickle one's fancy.
Rozzie rats
Had never seen one in my Roslindale Neighborhood of 9 years until a week ago. It was HUGE! No nearby construction so I don’t know where it came from or what the food source is. Eep.
Whose responsible for the rats on the T?
Every night when I go to the upper busway in Forest Hills Station I'll see one or two rats running from the decorative grasses by the bikeway onto the pedestrian walkway and towards the side gate where the T keeps equipment. They are not however of unusual size. Some nights when I miss my bus and sit on the wall near the grasses I can hear the running around in there. It's pretty creepy.