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Citizen complaint of the day: Mean hissing rats training for the Olympics on Beacon Hill
By adamg on Sun, 01/15/2023 - 8:55pm
A concerned citizen files a 311 report about the "hissing aggressive rats running continually between Willow Court, Willow Street and Acorn Street," rats that are "too fast for me to catch them on camera!"
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Comments
How separated from the real
How separated from the real world people are. Rats breed so fast and have been hanging around EVERYWHERE before all of us were here. Doesn't that tell you that you can never get rid of them? Dude, they're fuckin laffinatyahh!!
High rent sophisticated,
High rent sophisticated, beacon hill blue blood Rats hanging around $17 million dollar properties .
Actually our rats in the new
Actually our rats in the new inclusionary glorified housing JP / Rox are living much larger. I went out to take my trash to the dumpster and one of cute little buddies was looking at me with all love like, "Heyyyy...just chewin' on some pizza crust!! "
The tide ebbs and flows
Yes, rats will always be with us, but, having lived in cities pretty much all my life, I can tell you that sometimes they’re scarce and sometimes they’re plentiful, and we have a lot of control over that. deprive them of food and they’re scarce. Feed them and they’re plentiful.
On my block they were plentiful during a sloppily managed construction project. Then there was a new construction project that took rat control seriously, and I didn’t see more than one or two rats per month. Then a new neighbor moved in, who puts out food trash without bagging it, and the population blew up again. The city treated a couple of burrows, and now there are fewer again.
The city rat control people are pretty good, but they can’t be everywhere at once, so it’s always worth noting excessive rat activity on the 311 app, as that drives the database they use to know where to work.
But, yeah, skip the dramatic narrative and just report “fresh rat burrow, lots of rats, tree pit in front of 35 main st.”
Unfortunately
The city suspended its rat control services during the pandemic. The head of ISD said that due to no treatment during this time, the rat population had exploded to levels he never seen. He even said that it was worse than NYC. Also said that it is especially bad over in Quincy right now as well. He said they’ve been stepping up services pretty aggressively over the last 3 months so hopefully that will help.
Before we were here?
While there are native rodents, the suspects of interest were introduced when humans came with shiploads of them.
Of course their continued survival is assisted by the thrice-weekly rat buffet on the streets, unsecured dumpsters, and overall failure to manage habitat.
world class rats
world class rats
But never forget
Our seagulls are even world classier.
What we need
A raccoon tycoon to run for office and convince the seagulls that the rats are taking their jobs.
Left out how
in the complaint how residents do their part to attract rats by leaving trash out. Problem is probably worse on north slope, but as the complaint states it is also a problem on south slope.
Not all the south slope is $17 million homes. There are at least two buildings in the immediate area of this complaint that have your typical Boston apartments.
There are more
rats than there are people and there are more cockroaches than there are rats.
It's their world. They just don't know about their power in numbers.
If 8 rats jumped on you all at once, who wins?
They're afraid of us because we're much larger, but if they were aware of their power, they could take over and wipe us out.
They’re super smart
If they wiped us out, then no more leftover pizza in the trash. They’re not going to derail the gravy train.
Don Martin's famous rat race cartoon in MAD
https://www.madmagazine.com/sites/default/files/An-Evening-in-the-City.jpg
MAD
LOL
Watch out for MAD rats!
They are more dangerous than the plain ole ANGRY ones.
New game concept: ANGRY RATS -- Rated E
Lucky
Where I’m from the rats get you 20 years for hissing.
311 rats
I just looked at 311 rat complaints online. There are 1678 open reports for "rat" and 1471 open reports for "rats" . Some reports include both words .
In my experience and memory, the rat problem in my neighborhood (Fields Corner) is worse than ever. And the city is either way behind in processing complaints or doesn't care, or both. I'm guessing the so far mild winter is a contributing factor. And my neighbor who puts out bowls of rice for the birds (and rats) is certainly not the one who does this.
On Saturday I saw a new rats nest with several holes and mounds in a location I pass by several times a week. Not surprisingly, my 311 complaint is still open.