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Citizen complaint of the day: Nothing stops the door-eating super rats of Brighton
By adamg on Fri, 07/28/2023 - 11:36am
A frantic citizen files a 311 complaint about the unstoppable rats swarming Commonwealth and Chestnut Hill avenues:
They've eaten thru the shed multiple times to get the garbage, tried putting it in the garage with covered barrels and double up on the mint bags, they eat thru the garage door, eat thru the barrels, nothing stops them, ordered some super poison that you can supposedly only buy in texas, it didn't help. I got metal barrels but they only lasted 2 weeks because Capitol wonderful teamsters insist on crushing the barrels so the covers don't fit. I wish the city would stop wasting our tax money on stupid shit and get somebody to help with the rat problem instead. Everytime you issue another building permit for a big project, you're stirring up thousands of rats underground. Everytime you fix the rails on Comm ave T (which is every 2 years btw) you stir up rats. Why?? Can the mayor please give a crap that we have tenants with young children and they're terrified to take out their trash!! I'm at the end of my rope because nobody cares.
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Comments
It's their world
We're only in it.
Paranoid and hysterical. It's
Paranoid and hysterical. It's going to be fine. People leave food trash all over city playgrounds for rats to enjoy and we don't have an epidemic of rodent-bourne illnesses in children.
Rodent infestation
Citywide is worse than ever, but the Mayor refuses to address it.
Please discuss…
Please discuss the difference between “refuses to address it,” and “isn’t addressing it as aggressively as I would like.” Because the former would imply an actual position stated by the mayor, which I doubt the record actually supports.
Funny you mention "records"
Funny you mention "records" which are notoriously not kept by this administration.
Yeah
Everyone knows Wu doesn't care about sound quality. Most of her music library is low quality 128kbps mp3s. The woman wouldn't know a FLAC file, let alone anything approaching real Hi-Fi.
Regional Issue
This is a regional issue, not just a city one.
I agree FOR THE REGION it is getting worse.
The rats don't know or care that they are in Boston or Brookline or Somerville. So a regional strategy is necessary. Is that Mayor Wu's priority? Possibly, but there's nothing stopping mayor's (or City Managers) from other cities and towns inside 128 going "hey, let's work together on this too". Or maybe this should really come from Healy's office.
The other thing is that cities and towns can only do so much. Using bait is really bad for the environment (rats eat poison, then other animals that normal eat rats get sick and die also). Dry Ice is the most effective and a mass (regional) effort over a few months might fix it but that issue lies with the fed, they don't want people to use dry ice this way.. but its becoming an issue where we will have too.
So again, it's not just Mayor Wu who could do something here to make a difference, maybe Rep Pressley or Rep Clark, or even Sen. Warren could help nudge the fed. Mayor Wu doesn't have to carry all the weight here. There's others who can take initiative too.
It's late stage capitalism..
Always follow the money. Back story here: https://www.universalhub.com/2020/cold-comfort-boston-resume-use-dry-ice...
The city was putting dry ice in rodent burrows to kill the rats. Somebody started lobbying the EPA to ban the use of dry ice for rodent control, because dry ice was not a registered pesticide. To anybody sane, this would be like the EPA banning the use of water to drown rats because water is not a registered pesticide. The EPA responded to the lobbying.
Then, somebody processed the paperwork to register their particular brand of dry ice (which is identical to all other dry ice) as a pesticide.
So now, in a particularly Kafka-esque turn of events, the city pays a licensing fee to that somebody, in return for which the city obtains stickers. Then the city goes to the same dry ice supplier it had been using all along, picks up the dry ice, applies the stickers to the package, and uses the dry ice as it ad been doing all along. The company to which the city pays the licensing fee plays no role in manufacturing, distributing, or monitoring the use of the dry ice.
pure, unadulterated parasitic rent-seeking.
as an aside, "the Fed" generally refers to the Federal Reserve Bank, which I doubt plays much of a role in regulating pest control practices.
I wonder what the premium is for this special ice?
One wonders how much extra the city pays for this extra special ice?
I have to give the company credit, though, for figuring this out and be able to sell the ice.
Further reading on the topic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
So they admit to committing a crime
And an ugly crime, one that
And an ugly crime, one that likely endangers wildlife, people's pets. What a shithead.
That will kill all the birds
That will kill all the birds of prey and animals that eat the poisoned rats
Is this really a crime or one
Is this really a crime or one simply cannot technically buy this stuff if not a licensed exterminator? There is a difference between technically not possible and chargeable offense.
"Illegal" is not equivalent to "Crime"
As has been discussed to death around the topic of illegal immigration, the fact that something is illegal doesn't make it a crime. The vast majority of things that are violations of the law are not crimes. Parking where forbidden. Paying your taxes late. Using the wrong size pipe in your plumbing project. Overstaying your visa and remaining in the USA. Using a pesticide in contravention to applicable regulations.
This landlord came to the wrong place for sympathy
Looking out for his tenants children and gets nothing but grief.
The only solution
is better trash management.
But it needs to be a city-wide effort. The rats that are chewing this person's shed and cans are getting fed on wide-open dumpsters elsewhere, or just bags sitting on the sidewalk or in the alley. That's what the city needs to crack down on. Poison and traps will do nothing until that's fixed.
That's not how any of this works...
Where does this person think rats come from?
CAN I HAVE YOUR CONDO?
She blames the T
For letting rats aka Track Rabbits loose in the neighborhood.
Large scale
fail-proof rat mitigation is needed in Brighton. FACT. MIT builds robots with expertise in everything from warfare to oral sex--we have the brains we just need the will.
A large portable trap, say, the size of a Goodwill clothing repository, outfitted (infitted?)with environmentally safe poison or electric shocks or lazers or portal to Florida or a nuclear reactor....just get it done already for fuck's sake
stop wasting our tax money on
Now that hits many nails on many heads,
Rats can eat through concrete
Rats can eat through concrete as well. Nothing can stop the super-rats!