It’s a rat’s world from Back Bay to Brighton
Adam links to a Boston Globe story on rats invading Back Bay, but guess what? Boston University’s student newspaper The Daily Free Press scooped the broadsheet on this one. Here’s from the paper’s report yesterday from a city council meeting where the rats apparently figured prominently:
“We have community members who have lived here for 45 years who have never seen them like this,” [Councilor Michael Ross] Ross said. “There are different kinds [of rats] in bushes, in planters, all over the place.”
Ross said the rat issue calls for immediate examination, suggesting the formation of a committee to investigate the link between the rats and a new water and sewer project in the city. He guessed the rats may be following the sewer lines.
Ross blamed the contractors of the project, whom he criticized for not lay enough traps and bait.
…
Council-At-Large Felix Arroyo agreed, saying he also received complaints from residents in other parts of the city.
“Folks in the Allston-Brighton area will be relieved to hear that rats really are a problem everywhere and not just in their areas,” he joked.
Arroyo also blamed the problem on the sanitary habits of college students, who account for a large percentage of Boston’s population.
“We are close to so many students who aren’t sure how to store outdoor trash,” he said.
The rat problem was pretty severe earlier this year, then it went away, but now it’s back and even worse than before. There are rats everywhere in our backyard. They must die.
I don’t really care much for the blame game. The students show up every year, so I doubt they are the primary reason for why the infestation is worse this year. Maybe it’s the contractors. It doesn’t really matter to me. Just trap and lace our neighborhoods and let’s get rid of these little bastards.
Not to get all sidetracked here, but what’s up with all these contractors doing sewer line work? Didn’t mayor Tom Menino ban such work a while ago because the contractors did such a crummy job restoring the streets after they dug them up? And why is the city’s oversight of construction work so poor that contractors apparently can get away with all these alleged sins of not repaving or trapping?
