In battle with rats, fix lies in ‘people problem’

Baltimore crew handles about 235,000 service calls a year

A Norway Rat is seen in the 500 block of N. Glover Street in Baltimore as the Rat Rubout team works in a nearby alley. Lloyd Fox/Staff

The small white utility van comes to a stop along the curb in the 500 block of North Glover Street. Donald Brooks, a 43-year veteran with the Department of Public Works’ Rat Rubout program opens the rear doors, with a large stop sign-shaped sticker in the window reading “Warning Pesticides.” He pulls out a handful of yellow caution flags along with a duster, which is used to spray poisonous tracking powder into rat burrows.

Members of the city’s pest control team make their way through trash-filled alleys in East Baltimore on this cool morning, inspecting them for signs of infestation from Baltimore’s most common rat, the Norway rat, also known as the brown rat. They place the yellow caution flags in areas after they have been treated with rat poison. The team comes across a couple of dead rats in the alley along with one that looks sick that the team said will die shortly.

“We don’t have a rat problem; we have a people problem,” Brooks said, talking about the trash that helps sustain the vermin.

Although activity slows in the winter months, the 10-person crew completes more than 235,000 service calls per year for rats, which includes 311 requests and proactive service calls, according to the DPW. The city’s fiscal 2025 budget for the Rat Rubout program is slated to be over $1.1 million.

In the first half of 2024, the Rat Rubout team’s calls have increased 25% over the same period in 2023, city officials told the Baltimore City Council during a recent meeting. The city is also looking into using Contrapest, a liquid rat birth control product that could help reduce infestations.

The city’s Rat Eradication program started in 1972 and was renamed to the Rat Rubout program in 1981. Rats have been a continuing source of problems for Baltimore residents. As the crews make their way through neighborhoods, they stress to residents to keep their alleys clear of trash and other debris where rats can find food and a place to call home.

Talking about the trash problems in the city, Anthony Hall, a lead worker with the team said, “No matter how much you clean it up, they throw it right back out there.”

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