Suddenly, Dundalk has become a community full of vigilantes. But not against teenage hoodlums or drugs.
Over the past few weeks, crusaders have waged war with an overwhelming rat population ? catching hundreds with traps, poison-laced holes, pellet guns and garden spikes.
“The rats have totally invaded our neighborhood,” said Susan Rayba, a West Inverness resident. “The harder we try to kill these rats, the more they appear. Nobody in this area can get control.”
From West Inverness to Turner?s Station, from Colgate to Dunlogan, County Councilman John Olszewski said his office has been “inundated” with rat complaints from Dundalk residents in the past few months. His staff has documented 83 complaints so far this year ? not including anonymous calls ? more than triple that of last year and 600 percent more than the 12 complaints received in 2005.
Dundalk hardware stores can?t keep pest-control products on the shelves. Exterminators say business is booming. A local chemical company is offering a discount for Dundalk residents purchasing rat poison.
And residents like Carl Persiani are taking matters into their own hands.
On a recent tour of Dundalk?s alleys, Persiani pointed out networks of rat burrows, mounds of rat feces and piles of garbage and junk that harbor the vermin.
Twice a week, his neighbors lure rats with forks dipped in peanut butter, than wait, armed with pellet guns.
“Our backyards are kill zones,” Persiani said. “We have declared war on the rats.”
County officials, Persiani and other community leaders say, are doing little to help eradicate the pests.
County officials say they?re doing the best they can.
Code inspectors routinely sweep the neighborhoods and are more often forgoing warnings when they see violations like garbage cans without lids and excessive junk and issuing immediate citations, said David Carroll, director of the county?s environmental protection and resource management department.
This spring, the county established a rat complaint hot line with a more streamlined response, but Carroll said the rats won?t go away until residents improve their housekeeping habits.
While residents recount horror stories ? like Vicki Moffett, who used a garden spike to kill three rats hiding inside her son?s front-porch toy box, or John Budka, who grabbed onto a live rat while weeding his front lawn ? Carroll said his inspectors have stories of their own.
“My inspectors have gone out and seen children?s play equipment and sandboxes with rat holes underneath them,” Carroll said. “People have got to take ownership of this.”
But some politicians say the blame doesn?t rest wholly on the residents. They point to recent county-authorized demolitions of vacant buildings like the Seagrams distillery and Yorkway apartment complex.
Del. Sonny Minnick, a Democrat who represents Dundalk, last month crafted a choicely worded e-mail to an aide to County Executive Jim Smith requesting the aide “get off your ass and do something.”
“If this was going on in Reisterstown, where Mr. Smith lives, it would have been taken care of a long time ago,” Minnick said.
County spokesman Don Mohler said the government?s efforts are showing promising results, thanks to time and staff Smith is dedicating to combat the rats. But the most effective solution, he said, is education.
“If you could exterminate all the rats in one neighborhood in one night, unless we are to change human behavior, they would be back in very short order,” Mohler said.
But State Sen. Norman Stone and Olszewski, too, have sent Smith letters pleading for help. Olszewski suggested the county collect trash twice per week until the population is controlled, but said the county must help eradicate the rodents, too.
The county stopped eradicating on private property because of liability issues, Carroll said. Olszewski said the county is exploring a waiver system to receive permission to eradicate in residents? yards, similar to a Baltimore City program.
“I think education is a good thing, and citing people who are contributing to the problem is a good thing,” Olszewski said. “But I?ve also been saying, until I?m blue in the face, that we have to get rid of them all.”
