Columbus, Ohio USA
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Rodent Problem Surfaces in Short North
Rats spotted in Harrison West neighborhood
By Margaret Marten
January/February 2014 Issue

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(C) Clinton Reno

Reports of rat activity in Clintonville last summer prompted city officials to conduct a rodent assessment study to determine rat population in the area after receiving numerous complaints. Calls from residents in the Harrison West neighborhood of the Short North prompted a similar study. The city’s only rat-control program, established in 2006, was eliminated in 2009, but after the recent complaints Columbus Public Health announced in November that some form of rat control will be instituted in 2014, and the city has responded to the complaints by conducting assessments and distributing educational material on methods to discourage or eliminate rats.

Whatever led to the rise in rodent activity in the Columbus area is open to debate, but disruption in the ecology seems a likely explanation for the problem in Harrison West. The West Fifth Avenue Dam removal and the Third Avenue and Edgehill Road improvements likely forced rodents to relocate into Harrison West and nearby areas.

According to a WBNS-10TV news report, one Clintonville resident claimed to have killed 30 rats over a period of a few months. The Columbus Public Health director of communications, Jose Rodriguez, said Clintonville already had a serious problem by the time they got there and officials may never know what caused the infestation; however, they hope to get ahead of the problem in Harrison West. “Rats are very much like people,” Rodriguez said. “If you feed them and give them shelter and water, they will come. It’s about getting rid of those sources so they’re not happy in your area any longer, so they will go away.”

Harrison West resident Mary Martineau was among those who reported rat activity in her neighborhood. “I was riding my bike home and saw one run across the alley,” she said. “It dove under my shed, so I went and got bait under my shed and killed a couple.” She found a total of three rats. “I saw one live rat and two dead ones that I managed to apparently kill with the bait.” Her neighbor Clinton Reno found two rats after he placed bait but hasn’t seen any since this past summer when that occurred. He spotted the first one in his yard after noticing his cat Chloe “messing” with it. “At first we thought maybe Chloe had gotten it,” he said, “then we realized ‘no way’ because Chloe is pretty lazy.” He and his wife concluded it was a result of the bait. Three or four weeks later, he discovered another dead one.

The recent survey of the Harrison West area covered about half of the neighborhood and saw evidence of rodent activity in about five percent of that area, much lower than they found in other Columbus neighborhoods, according to Rodriguez. “We did find that many homes in Harrison West had food sources for rats,” he said. “That is a concern. The good news is that we’re working closely with the residents to make sure they know how to minimize the food in their backyard.”

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