The residents of an Arlandria apartment complex are suffering from a long-standing rat problem so severe, they are reluctant let their children in their backyards.
City Council members questioned Code Enforcement Director John Catlett this week after seeing what Councilman Rob Krupicka called “dramatic” pictures of yards and trash bins overrun with rat holes at the 398-unit Presidential Greens apartment complex in the neighborhood between Arlington County and Alexandria.
“People are not willing to put their kids in their backyards because [the yard is] against a fence that has a trash Dumpster on the other side, and the whole backyard is littered with holes that have rats,” Krupicka said.
“I feel like we need to do something more than we’re doing because this problem is not going away, and repeating the same thing over and over is just a sign that we’re going crazy.”
The rat problem at Presidential Greens became public in 2004, when residents protested property owner United Dominion Realty Trust‘s rising rents amid rat and cockroach infestations.
Catlett said a supervisor from the code enforcement office visits the site daily and that the office is working to get the rat holes filled in.
He said the problem also has lessened since UDR hired a new exterminating company a few months ago, after its former contractor failed to consistently bait the rat traps.
The building has moved from biweekly trash collection to daily trash collection, Catlett said.
“We had some discussions of adding additional Dumpsters out there, but we thought we would just be perpetuating the problem,” he told the City Council. “I don’t have the great answer for you tonight, but I will tell you we are working on the situation – it hasn’t been abandoned.”
