More Anacortes residents are having close encounters of the rodent kind.
Rats are popping up under homes, in low-lying brush and even garages as the local population thrives.
“No matter what they did with ‘Ratatouille,’ people still don’t like them,” said Peter Browning, Skagit County Health Department director, citing a Disney movie featuring the rodents. “People are more offended by them than raccoons.”
The Health Department sent a letter to some Skyline residents in late July that included ways to discourage the pesky creatures.
“We’ve been getting a lot of rat complaints, and when we do we send out information,” Browning said.
And it’s not just a Skyline problem. He said they’ve been getting calls from elsewhere in Anacortes as well as across the county, and Seattle and Everett are having similar problems.
Don Measamer, Anacortes assistant director of planning and community development, said the city has received a handful of calls this year.
“We’re not hearing any more than in past year,” he said.
Browning said the Health Department’s letter is precautionary, helping people understand how to prevent the rats from continuing to multiply.
Rats can carry diseases. “It’s not something we want to ignore,” he said.
Browning said the biggest problem is too many people inadvertently feeding them — by leaving out dog or cat food, having easily accessible bird feeders and not closing garbage containers tightly.
“A lot of it was unintentional stuff,” he said.
The Health Department’s letter tells residents how to remove food sources and places rats can live.
“The combination of accessible food, water and shelter is an open invitation for rats to move into an area and thrive,” it states.
By reducing food, Browning said it will make it less likely rats will continue to reproduce at their current rates.
“They grow from infancy to full-on rats pretty quickly,” he said.
Rats are not a new problem here. Browning said over the past 12 years the rodents have been a problem off and on.
“It’s not at the worst we’ve ever seen but it’s up there,” he said.
He said there are easily thousands of rats running around the city.
The recent push to create more backyard wildlife habitats here may be contributing to the problem.
“Sometimes when your best of intentions are to create a healthy environment for all animals it includes rats,” Browning said.
How to keep rats away
A letter from the Skagit County Health Department includes suggestions to help keep rats out of neighborhoods. They include:
• Store pet and animal food in a secure manner
• Give pets only the amount of food that can be eaten at one time
• Do not compost meats, fat or dairy products
• Cover composted foods to discourage rats and turn often to mix material
• Monitor the ground around bird and squirrel feeders for spilled seeds
• Keep bird and squirrel feeders accessible only to the intended animals
• Remove low growing ground cover, which is excellent habitat for rats
• Store garbage in a water-tight, rodent-resistant container with a close-fitting lid
For more information on how to keep rats and rodents out of your home visit http://www.skagitcounty.net/healthdiseases/documents/rats.pdf. Or call the Skagit County Health Department at (360) 336-9380.
