Rat problem spreads to Fruit Hill and beyond

Close trash cans and cut off food sources, says exterminator

By Ethan Shorey

Breeze Staff Writer

North Providence – Call in the Pied Piper. The rat boom in Centredale is spreading, overtaking Fruit Hill, Mineral Spring Avenue and beyond. Some residents say not even the most famous of rat killers will rid the town of these loathsome creatures.

“We’re not ever going to get rid of them completely,” said a defeated Luigi DelPonte, who has fought the rats in Centredale himself for several months. “But we don’t have to feed them and we can reduce their numbers.”

The rats began to be a problem in early 2006, residents say. According to Anthony Tudino, of A & D Pest Control, the rat problem can indeed be solved. He said he won’t be charming the rats out with a whistle, but he does need cooperation in cutting off food sources.

“A few houses are causing problems for the whole neighborhood,” he said. “The garbage is not the whole problem. Take away their food source, then they will leave, but you can’t just blame the garbage.”

Tudino was brought in by Mayor Charles A. Lombardi to consult with various residents on how to get rid of the rats, which some say have become an infestation in other neighborhoods.

“People leave their fried stuff right out in the open,” said Al Seguin, of 421 Fruit Hill Ave. “It’s becoming a real problem over here.”

He said the rats aren’t afraid of anything, even scavenging for food in broad daylight.

“There are rats right next door,” he said. “I counted 11 rats underneath the steps.”

Tudino spoke with about 30 residents at a meeting called by Councilor Mansuet “Manny” Giusti last week. He said that rats’ teeth, which are harder than iron, grow at a rate of .4 millimeters-per-day, and the force of their bite is about 7,000 pounds per squre inch. He said putting your trash in the garage, as some have resorted to, won’t help, because the rats will chew right through the garage door.

“They can jump three feet straight up in the air too,” he said. “Right into your trash can. They can bite six times a second, so a garage door is really just a nuisance to them.”

Some residents are trapping dozens of rats in Centredale monthly.

DelPonte said he’s fed up with people tossing their food without lids in their cans, throwing their trash in the local clothes collection bins, and in general not caring about the rat infestation in their neighborhoods.

“My wife has been here for 45 years, and I have been here 28 years and I have never seen anything like this,” said DelPonte. “I don’t see any improvement yet, because the people that are at fault didn’t attend that meeting. They’ve all got to cover their garbage cans when they throw it out.” He said that even though his best efforts may work in his own yard, it won’t fix the problem unless everyone participates.

Luz Camacho, an employee at the Salvation Army on Smith Street in Centredale, said that while she hasn’t seen much in the way of rats, she has seen plenty of mice, both dead and alive, around the donation bin at the Salvation Army store.

“People are always throwing their trash in there,” she said. “Then the mice get into the bags of clothes.”

Camacho said she had no idea why it is such a compulsion for people to throw their garbage in donation bins instead of throwing it in their own bin on the sidewalk.

Causes blamed for the rat boom include fruit trees, open trash cans, exposed food, animal droppings of everything from dogs to seagulls flying down from Twin River, birdfeeders, and vegetable gardens.

DelPonte said he is in the process of recreating his trash receptacles and backyard to be mostly cement and steel, and said he sprays his trash and cans with ammonia to keep the pesky rodents away.

“They don’t like that,” he said.

“The rats are desperate,” he continued. “They’ll chew out the four corners of a trash can just to get at the food. People don’t have to go to the extreme that I’m going to do, but they have to at least try to put a stop to this.”

DelPonte said he’s even used rodenticide in his yard, a step some residents are afraid would harm their pets or children.

“That’s because they’re throwing the poison on the ground,” said Tudino. “But when a company does it, it is put in a station that’s locked and staked to the ground.”

He said that residents should not be handling rat poison themselves, as strict laws govern how rodenticide should be used.

“By law you have to keep it out of the reach of children, and the bait has to be in a tamper-resistant station,” said Tudino.

Tudino said the rats aren’t even able to get the bait out of the stations to trail it across the ground. He suggested that the best poison is the kind that takes a week to kill, so the rats won’t panic immediately, and most would eat the poison before the first one dies. He said that while many people are having the poison traps installed on their property, the food sources still need to be cut back.

“When the food source is closed off they won’t multiply that fast, they won’t have as many offspring, and they’ll turn on their own offspring,” he said. “Rats are rats. They’ll eat their own offspring, and I’m confident that this isn’t a long-term problem.”

Tudino agreed with DelPonte about the ammonia, saying that pouring it on trash forces rats away from those food sources, to the poison traps. He said he doesn’t believe an infestation on the same level as Centredale has moved into other parts of town and doesn’t expect it to.

“When it rains, you’ll see rats come up out of the storm drains,” he said. “That’s why it looks like there’s more rats sometimes.”