Rat Problem? You’re Not Alone in Atlanta
October 28, 2009 | 11:39 amThere are few things more embarrassing to bring up in conversation with friends – or enemies for that matter – than your “rat problem”.
As you retell your harrowing tale of found “droppings” and gnawed cereal boxes, faces cringe and tuck into shoulders. (You’re cringing right now, aren’t you?) Yes, I speak from personal experience.
Well, here in Atlanta you can at least take a bit of solace that you are not alone. A 2008 d-Con “Rodent Risk Report” ranks Atlanta second only to NYC among U.S. cities in terms of “rodent risk”.
Regardless of the self-serving aspects of d-Con producing a report like this, it’s quite surprising to see sprawled out Atlanta up at number 2. But apparently the warm climate and higher-than-average foreclosure rate overcomes our general spaciousness and brings us one step closer to our goal of being the true “NYC of the South”.
h/t: AJC
What this city needs is more crazy cat ladies.
I wonder if there’s any money set aside for cat food subsidies in the Federal Stimulus Package…
Their are more here than in Boston? Your kidding me! Its hard to believe that. There such pesky pests.
I think YOUR making fun of me. And rightly so.
Gnaw, I think you’re mistaken.
I know, I know. It’s obviously even worse when I’m tired.
I can’t say anything for Decatur, but I’ve heard that COA spends next to nothing on rat control.
It’s like Ratatouille in Virginia Highland. Seriously. There are 50 pound Norwegian rats with condo complexes, restaurants and voter registration cards. And I have never seen rats like the ones around Tech. They have their own zipcode around Homepark.
You should see the ones in Texas, where I’m from– they’d sit around in the alleys playing cards & smoking cigars, shaking people down. Oddly, they all also had Brooklyn accents…
Did the dreaded ACORN do the registrations?
Actually, they paid for the swimming pool with ACORN cash, dude.
The rats living around Underground Atlanta are massive… One crawled up into the engine compartment of my car several years ago. It was big enough to knock off the alternator belt. The thing was the size of a possum.
Surely there’s a correlation between the prediction of an increased rat population and MARTA selling food.
Only if riders/eaters toss their Snickers wrappers on the floor or out the window instead of in the trash bin.
I was sort of joking, but people do litter and spill, so expect to see more food and drink refuse in and around MARTA stations and on buses and trains. Rats have always been prevalent in the train stations, and this will only get worse with an increase in food consumption.
I see what you’re really saying Jeff and, frankly, I find it appalling. I am so sick of people on this board treating rats as second-class rodents just because they utilize MARTA.
I believe it – I was recently sitting outside at an un-named restaurant near Emory Univ. at 9pm and saw no fewer than a half-dozen rats scurrying around the deck and to/from the dumpster. Perhaps there’s a rat population / dumpster population correlation.
2nd only to NYC??? I truly find that hard to believe, but I suppose anything’s possible. Maybe it’s because we have two very alert, critter-lovin’ indoor kitties (they pounce on anything that flies or crawls), but I can honestly say we’ve never seen any tell-tale signs of rodents in our house– no gnawed cereal boxes or chip bags, no droppings, etc.. Not to say they probably aren’t lurking somewhere around the immediate perimeter of it, but I’ve (fortunately) never actually seen one inside. *knock wood* Ugh! May it stay that way!!!
Our problem had to do with a previous owner punching through a piece of the foundation to install a new sewer line to the street. Once we patched that, no more problems.
However, once they get inside, it’s near impossible to stop them. Trust me, nothing is worse than lying in bed and listening to a rat chew through the thick metal screen that you just installed over a vent hole in your floor. Ugh is right!
There are many homeless cats in shelters that would love to solve your rodent problem.
Got 2 cats, no rats.
We have 2 cats, and had had no gnawed food. The only symptom we had up in the main part of the house was cats staring at the hole under dishwasher the last infestation left. Cased the guy who helps us with that. He caught 8 rats in our basement, without us having any other symptoms.
If trash containers are not closed, you have created a rat feeding station. They will return night after night.
Commercial dumpsters at multi-family buildings and restaurants are mega feeding stations.
What I have learned about rats in Decatur:
- Thanks to the sewer system, they are part of our ecology
- They like bird feed. A lot. They can gnaw through a steel vault to get to it. Or at least garage siding and wall and a thick sealed plastic tub. If you keep bird feed anywhere on your property, you have rats, whether or not you know it.
- If you hear something moving in your walls, you can fool yourself with thinking that it’s vibrations, or an old house creaking, or a cute little mouse or chipmunk, but it’s not….it’s rats.
- They have a certain smell. If you smell it, they are in your air ducts.
- If you renovate your attic, you now live closer to them. Ditto for basement.
- Toddlers are not afraid of them
- My bachelor brother who sleeps in the attic when he visits is not afraid of them
- If given a choice between rat control and the school system, I would choose the former and homeschool my kids.
- There’s an “eco-friendly” pest control company that has been known to shoot them and then leave the shotgun in the woods by mistake
- I’ve seen way more rats in Decatur than I ever saw living in New York City and taking the subway several times a day
- If given a choice between rat control and the school system, I would choose the former and homeschool my kids
LOL.
Given a choice between coyotes and rats, I would choose the former and chaperon my cat and dog more closely.
Blessed be the house with a cat.
Rat-hurdling, dodging and fleeing in Woodruff Park is a welcome companion to any twilight run or vigorous constitutional. Vagrants leave scads of chicken bones (no doubt free range) lining the park’s edges. This delicious urban-styled rat-chow keeps the rats nimble, athletic and o’plenty (watch out New York, we’re gaining on ya’ll!).
There is no thrill quite like eye contact with a burly alpha-male pack leader as leaping over his gnashed incisors. Should you, per chance, fear our urban fauna friend squealing like a little girl (just like the death penalty) is a very effective deterrent – or that’s what someone told me… about the squealing that is.
Good discussion here. In our case, a roof rat chewed his way into the kitchen through the floor behind the dishwasher. Left urine spots and droppings everywhere. We got him with a rat trap after a few days. The important thing is to keep them out of the house by sealing even the smallest apertures around the perimeter and the roof (they can squeeze in a quarter size hole).
There was an article in CL on rats in Atlanta. One of Mara Shalhoup’s first cover stories for CL.
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/rats/Content?oid=2434
Well, thanks to that Creative Loafing link, I now associate rats with gyros.
Years ago, when a lovely well-fed rat specimen squozed in beside a pipe in a guest bathroom and then pushed his way out into the room, our two cats sat on the toilet and watched him– quite amused. The rat was undetered. Of course, they won’t catch any attic rats, either…
I wonder if the rat problem has contributed to the Atlanta area being ranked 23rd in a list by Forbes of the country’s safest cities.
Yes, that’s 23rd…behind places like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/26/safest-cities-ten-lifestyle-real-estate-metros-msa_chart.html
A true story: everal year agoI awoke about 2am to get a drink of water, as I walked into my kitchen I wondered why my (big) cat was sitting in the doorway to the kitchen, very still and staring imtently at A true story: several year ago I awoke about 2am to get a drink of water, as I walked into my kitchen I wondered why my (big) cat was sitting in the doorway to the kitchen, very still and staring intently at my stove. Incredibly there sat a very large rat. The rat freaked when I turned on the light, and so did I. I could not stay at home, drove to my office and slept in my car. The apartment management was called the next morning. They patched the chewed hole under my sink, and put out poison the next day. Rat was never seen again. I could not sleep for weeks. There was a strange smell that I realized I had notice for weeks prior to spotting him or her. Cat was no help. This rat was huge. Good night.
Oh, AR, I was sitting on my porch with my back to the granite wall sorta drunk with my mostly drunk friend and she’s like, “Uhhhh, whatever you do don’t move or turnaround”. Turns out a giant rat was tinkling along behind me on the wall, chasing an equally massive roach. He seemed sort of annoyed we were sitting on his porch.
Then another time I was poking around my manicured grounds and a rat pops out from behind a tree and stares at me. He obviously felt like I was in his way. I yelled at him and waved my arms and generally made a fool of myself. He casually sauntered off and I swear to god he was looking at me over his shoulder.
“I smell a rat” is a true phenomenon, and once you smell one, you will always recognize that odor again. The same with mice. They have a certain odor that is very distinctive. My cats always took care of any rodents that dared to come on my property, even those outside. Sorry about those cats who are not so inclined…
I have tried to find the Faulkner short story where he ranks the smartest animals so I can quote it, but…he puts, if memory serves, the rat and donkey in the top two spots for the reason that they live off of humans AND do exactly what they want.
My brother and I had pet rats growing up–pet store rats mind you, and they were some of the best pets when they didn’t chew on electrical cords and get eaten by our cats.
Have you ever seen male pet store rats? Petco on Caroline has some. BRAD STEELE would be jealous.