There’s a war on the College Park streets, and the city plans to load up on ammunition.
A small army of rats have invaded Guilford Road recently, and the Department of Public Works told the city council last week they need to double their $10,000 rat control budget next year to win the battle.
Since working with university officals who successfully cleared out a large rat population in The Courtyards last year, rock-shaped rat poison pellets have been distributed throughout the city. And although a stretch of 51st Avenue in College Park Woods had the most missing bait, the highly student-populated Guilford Road still contains a “notoriously heavy rat population,” city documents show.
“We can stand out here any night. I see them walking right behind that building over there,” District 2 Councilman Jack Perry, who represents Berwyn, said of the downtown area near City Hall on Knox Road. “They’re big as cats. … The intersection of Guilford Road and Route 1 is like Grand Central Station down there.”
Much of the concern is centered on Guilford Run – the small creek that lies in the wide median along Guilford Road – and student liaison to the city council Jesse Blitzstein questioned what the university was doing about rats, because Guilford Road is so close to the university.
“You see huge ones all the time,” Blitzstein said of the Knox Road area where he lives, also close to the campus. “And I’m assuming the rats don’t know the difference between campus property and city property.”
Director of Public Services Bob Ryan pointed out that the university has a “very extensive eradication program” and has offered assistance to the city in pest control in the past. And although the rats don’t know city-university borders, students living in the area said the rats have definitely discovered where off-campus businesses keep their dumpsters and where students pile up their trash.
“I do notice rats all the time,” sophomore psychology major Ariel Grobman, who lives in a Knox Box apartment on Guilford, said in an e-mail. “They hang around the garbage areas and are seen scurrying all over at night since they are nocturnal. One Friday night crossing from Knox to Guilford, a rat ran on my friend Laura’s foot, freaking her out.”
And the rats nearly claimed a victim – albeit a feline one – when, last year, junior art major and Guilford resident Libby Formant’s cat attacked a rat. The cat ended up getting sick, but recovered before Formant took the cat to a veterinarian, she said in an e-mail.
“I don’t think anyone particularly enjoys living in a rat infested area, but until they are getting in my house, I’m not very concerned,” Formant said.
District 1 Councilman John Krouse, who represents North College Park, is concerned. At the meeting he related his own experiences, saying, “I think it’s important, and I can tell you that I’ve had my own problems with rats on my own property.”
The key to getting rid of the rats has nothing to do with the poison deployment, Ryan said. Rats are attracted to and eat trash from businesses’ dumpsters, so if the city is kept clean, there’ll be no rats.
“We’re never going to eradicate all the rats in College Park,” Ryan said. “They’re here to stay, and the best we can do is keep the population down and hopefully make it an unattractive place for them to be.”
Contact reporter Mike Silvestri at silvestridbk@gmail.com.
