Smell a Rat? Rodents on Rise in D.C.
Weather, Plentiful Food Foster Population Surge
By Linda Wheeler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 26, 1996
; Page B03
An extended family romped in Lafayette Square across from the White House,
running along the brick sidewalks and hiding in the bushes. For their moonlit
dinner, there was pizza, candy and soda.
Visitor Bill Hudson found the scene horrifying.
"There have to be hundreds of rats in there," said Hudson, who works for a
Maryland food distribution business. "I regularly take visitors through the
park at night, done it for years. Now I'll have to say, `I'll show you the
White House, and you can do hurdles over the rats.' "
The mild, wet summer has created ideal conditions for rat colonies to
expand. Pleasant days mean more picnickers leaving tasty garbage behind, and
rain keeps the food soft and attractive, specialists on rat behavior say.
Across the city, in commercial and residential neighborhoods as well as in
parks, the Norway rat population appears to be on the rise, according to some
who keep watch.
Earle Kittleman, a spokesman for the National Park Service, confirmed that
there are many more rats than usual in Lafayette Square. The annual autumn rat
eradication program will become a summer program this year, he said.
"There's a definite upswing," he said. "They're going to start the
applications" today.
Kittleman said the Park Service uses a poison approved by the Environmental
Protection Agency. The poison is placed in small boxes and positioned so that
rats following their regular routes will run through the boxes. Upon finding
the bait, they'll eat it.
But people food is what the rats have been eating. One night this week in
Lafayette Square, trash cans were full of treats: a slice of pepperoni pizza,
a half-eaten egg-salad sandwich on dark bread and plenty of spilled sodas.
Peanuts littered a walkway.
Fine dining for rats.
"They like what we like," said Harold Harlan, a consultant with the
National Pest Control Association. "Spicy food doesn't bother them at all. If
we eat it, they'll eat it."
And that's the basis of the problem. Unless humans are eradicated, there
always will be a supply of food for rats, Harlan said. An increase in the
supply, without an increase in predators, means an expanding population, he
explained.
Federal and city officials have good reason to continually work to contain
the rat population. Rats spoil food by their contact, spread disease through
the fleas they harbor and quickly can overrun a territory they like.
A female Norway rat is sexually mature at three months and can produce and
nurse a litter about every seven weeks, Harlan said. Each litter contains
about seven young. Rats are social animals, and an expanding colony often will
stay close together, adding new burrows next to old ones.
In Lafayette Square, in the grassy area at the base of the Andrew Jackson
statue, there are 18 burrows.
Although federal authorities have seen an increase in rats in Lafayette
Square, city officials say they have not detected any similar surge in rats in
the residential and commercial parts of the city.
Frankie Cox, chief of the city's rat abatement office, said Metro
construction and major house renovations can displace rats. She said her
office has seven people in the field responding to complaints and checking
places where rats seem to return.
The city uses a chemical substance that acts as a deadly blood thinner that
is sealed in small boxes and plugged into rat holes. The box blocks the
burrow, and the rat has to chew through the box -- and the bait -- to get out.
Cox said the smarter rats kick the boxes out of the holes to get to their
usual food supply.
Unless the garbage that attracts rats is eliminated, Cox said, there isn't
much chance of getting rid of the rodents.
As for complaints that there are more rats, Cox had a novel explanation:
"We always say there are two rats for every person in the city," she said.
"The [resident] population is declining, so maybe there are three rats per
person now." Census figures put the District's human population at about
580,000.
Counting rats always is guesswork. Although some venture out in the open,
many more are hidden from view in burrows. Harlan said the generally accepted,
but unscientific, rule for counting a rat population is to multiply by 10 the
number seen in public. Only the bolder ones will come out when humans are
around, he said.
If that's the case, there are about 500 rats in Lafayette Square alone.
Fifty were seen Wednesday night scampering around the base of the Jackson
statue and skittering across the sidewalks on the west side of the park.
For San Brown, the multiplication rule would mean there are nine rats
lurking around her Shaw house in addition to the one she spotted recently.
"It was the first time. Never, ever before," she said. "We got rid of it,
but we know there are lots more outside. They are so comfortable here, they
come out in the daytime."
Henry Jenkins, 65, who is retired and lives in Riggs Park in Northeast
Washington, said he also is seeing rats for the first time. This summer, he
quit mowing the vacant lots across from his Fourth Street brick rambler and
called on the city to take up the chore. They failed to respond, he said, and
now rats run among the tall weeds.
Weeds aren't enough to attract rats; they need food. According to Jenkins,
that's supplied by a group of men who sometimes hang out in the area and leave
garbage behind. On Friday, rat holes and discarded french fries, hamburger
scraps and partially filled soda cans were visible not far from the street.
"It's an eyesore and a health hazard," he said. "There are rats there for
sure."
Conception Picciotto, who has maintained a peace vigil in Lafayette Square
for 17 years, has encountered rats on a more personal level.
"A few nights ago, I dozed off for a few minutes and felt something on my
hand," she said. "I looked. It was a rat, and I screamed."
Picciotto said she throws her bedroom slippers at the uninvited guests to
get them to leave her alone.
"They are everywhere," she said. "They are disgusting."
Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington
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