HASSO HERING

This dead rat was lying in the gutter outside Burkhart Park when I rode past one day last October.

Does Albany have a growing problem with rats? Not really, and if it does there’s little the city can do. That, paraphrased, was the answer the city council got when the question came up toward of the end of its meeting on Wednesday night.

A resident of southwest Albany had written to the mayor and other members of the council complaining of rats in her neighborhood causing property damage and a general nuisance.  She also wrote to me.

She had contracted with a pest control company, she said, “however they are everywhere, and they are bold.” I asked if she had a photo. She didn’t right then, but the next day she sent one of a dead rat, apparently the result of poison she had put out.

“In my neighborhood, we have been doing battle with this for a few years,” she wrote, “but without a citywide plan it’s useless.”

At the council meeting, City Manager Peter Troedsson asked Kris Schendel, the code compliance officer attached to the police department, to talk about the resident’s concerns.

Schendel said he’s heard about rats for about five years. There have been complaints all over town, and the issue was not concentrated in one area. But he had not seen an increase in the number of complaints.

The municipal code calls for the city to act if there’s an “infestation” of vermin in a place, Schendel said. He thought that because of Covid, people staying home had been putting out more feed for wildlife and maybe keeping chickens, and that may have attracted rats.

But essentially, if I understood him right, the problem was not really increasing in his view. Further, other cities that took measures against rats found they didn’t work, and in any case the city doesn’t have the manpower to mount a rat eradication drive.

The way to deal with rats is to educate people to reduce potential food sources, seal up any holes to keep them from getting into houses, and especially to avoid inadvertently attracting the rodents by putting out feed for cats or wildlife.

If you want to listen to all of Schendel’s comments, they start at about  2:12:10 in the YouTube recording of the council meeting here.

Councilor Matilda Novak pushed back. She doesn’t remember rat complaints when she grew up in Albany, but she’s heard more and more since moving back to town about six years ago. She asked that the issue get serious attention.

But except for her, the council did not react. (hh)