Stained mattresses. Rusty refrigerators. Overturned, frayed couches. Heaps of mildewed wood, fans, traffic cones, tires and toilets.
What residents of a Towson neighborhood describe as a “squalid dumping ground” is paradise to an army of rats taking over their streambed community.
“It has become a serious safety and health issue,” said one Towson resident who asked to remain anonymous because she is trying to sell her home. “It?s really embarrassing.”
The woman, a resident of the heavily student-populated neighborhood of Donnybrook, said she pays $100 a month to contract a pest company to treat vermin issues outdoors. She said county officials responded to her complaints one year ago but said the problem was inside homes.
Baltimore County officials said they are dealing with the problem, which isn?t isolated to Towson?s student communities. Rat infestation, they said, is countywide, often in places where old buildings come down and new ones go up.
In Dundalk, County Council Chair John Olszewski said rats nest in older, abandoned buildings like the Yorkway Apartment complex scheduled to be bulldozed later this year. Once those buildings are condemned and torn down, rats no longer have a place to live and scatter into neighborhoods, he said.
At a council work session this week, Olszewski told other leaders the county needs an eradication plan.
“I hear the complaints constantly, and I?m on top of it,” he said. “We need to educate and eradicate at the same time.”
Olszewski said he?s been brainstorming solutions with county Development Director Tim Kotroco, including setting bait traps in abandoned buildings before they are torn down. He said he wants to form a Dundalk task force to meet with county officials and testify how bad the problem can be.
He said he also wants to create a countywide rental registration program, which only exists now in a small-scale pilot phase. The county could outsource rodent inspections before residential rentals are approved, he said.
County environmental officials did not return a request for comment by press time.
