The public works employee sees the bird feeders and the vegetable patches that turn yards in this affluent suburb into a breeding ground for ... rats.
Judy Vogel, a mother of three, had hoped the hole in her yard belonged to a mole or a chipmunk. 'I wouldn't have expected to see rats,' she said. 'It's a big concern. I don't want rats coming around, especially with the kids.'
Like other metropolitan communities throughout the country, Mt. Lebanon has a particularly pesky rodent problem this year. The borough is investigating 85 rat complaints, compared with 20 at this time last year, said Public Works Director Mike Rudman.
Allegheny County Health Department officials say that complaints from renters more than doubled from 1997 to 2000, while complaints from homeowners increased by about 20 percent. And this year's complaints are expected to surpass last year's total.
In Pittsburgh, the Homewood, Hazelwood and Brookline neighborhoods - and, to a lesser degree, Squirrel Hill and the East Allegheny section of North Side - have the worst rat problems, said Phyllis Gibson, supervisor of the city's Rodent Control Division.
Other cities are grappling with the same problem, albeit on a larger scale: In New York, officials held a Rat Summit in November and appointed a rodent task force. In Chicago, reports of rat sightings increased from 22,431 in July 2000 to 33,134 last month.
Property neglect, reduced government funding for pest control and aging sewers are blamed for the rat renaissance.
'Rats are a big part of an infrastructure problem with our county's sewers and human behavior. People are just slobs,' said Bill Todaro, a pest-control specialist for the Allegheny County Health Department.
There is no central census of rat populations, but the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have grown concerned enough to start a program emphasizing prevention and special attention to crowded and deteriorating neighborhoods.
Even though residents are complaining about rats more often, people refuse to eliminate bird feeders, clean up after their pets and remove food sources that attract the pests, rodent specialists say.
'Can we get rid of the rats in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York⢠The answer is no - not the way we as a society currently deal with the problem,' said Robert Corrigan, who owns RMC Pest Management Consulting in Richmond, Ind.
Corrigan spoke to 235 of the region's pest-control specialists at an annual conference held Thursday in Monroeville by the western division of the Pennsylvania Pest Management Association.
'We are not serious about eliminating the problem of rats and mice,' he said. 'If you clean up, reduce food and hire the right pest-control experts, you can control the rat problem in your city.'
Customers' desire for a quick, cheap solution compounds the problem, Corrigan and others said.
'They always look for the silver bullet that will solve their problems. It's not that simple,' said Tom Butler of P.J. Butler Co. Inc. in Dravosburg.
Butler, an officer of the association's west division, and other private exterminators said they have not received more complaints than usual this year, though government agencies have.
'What we have seen is an increase in the number of complaints from major cities - indicating there has been an increase in the rat population,' said Jerry Hershovitz, a CDC official who led the centers' rat-control program until 1981.
As part of that program, counties received grants for rat control.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Allegheny County Heath Department used that money as part of an aggressive rat-extermination program, spending as much as $500,000 a year and employing as many as 50 workers, Todaro said.
'It was a war on rats,' said Gibson, who has overseen the city Rodent Control Division of 20 years. She began working there when the division was created 26 years ago.
'The government funded it because there was a serious rat problem in the Eastern cities,' she said. 'That's not a priority with the government anymore.'
The city employs two people to respond to those complaints and bait when necessary.
'With two people there's not much you can do. It's just like a Band-Aid,' Gibson said.
Hershovitz agreed.
'We know that a complaint-oriented response program is not an effective program,' he said. 'If you're going to eliminate the cause of rats, what you really need to focus on is eliminating the food.'
Local government officials said they need to teach residents what attracts rats.
'It's very tough to change people's behavior,' Todaro said.
The county Health Department gives citations to the landlords of infested rented buildings, but it merely advises homeowners. Todaro said his department spends 'only a few thousand dollars'; he did not know the exact amount.
The county does some rat baiting in sewers, but primarily it educates local municipalities about how to do their own rat control. Nearly half of the county's municipalities have participated in the program.
'When the money went elsewhere, those big comprehensive programs went away,' Todaro said. All these municipalities have a choice of what to put their money into.'
Mt. Lebanon officials upgraded their own program this year, training a second employee in rat control and publicizing their service in a community magazine.
Even with more money, officials are limited when residents refuse to change their habits.
Rudman had those problems in his own Scott Township home.
'My wife had a bird feeder,' Rudman said. 'She fed the birds for ages and I told her about the rats. She would not get rid of it. Well, when one (rat) jumped out at her from the garden, that bird feeder went to the trash can.'
Timothy Puko can be reached at (412) 320-7975.
| Getting rid of rats |
Rats are more than a nuisance. During the 14th century, they helped spread the bubonic plague through Europe. More recently, rats have been known to carry diseases such as typhus or leptospirosis, a potentially serious bacterial illness. To get rid of rats:
For residential extermination, a fair charge for an initial visit is at least $40 an hour. Commercial service could cost as much as $100 an hour.
The initial visit should last from 45 to 60 minutes. The exterminator should make several follow-up visits.
