RI, MA EHS Pest Control Blog

Post Office Overrun by RATS as Rodents Devour Parcels........
So if You Don't Get Any Presents This Year Now You Know Why

With 16.5 billion letters, packages and cards expected through the U.S. Postal Service this holiday season, the last obstacle senders might expect their packages to face, are thieving rats.

A post office in Manhattan is fighting a rat infestation leaving chewed boxes and envelopes that carries any item found edible, by both human and rodent taste.

Packages found deliverable despite their outside damage of visible gnawing and gaping holes are showing up in the hands of their recipients as mere shells. The little animals can smell the chocolate and goodies,' Maureen Marion, a USPS spokeswoman for the North East told the New York Times, whose office has found the most reported damaged packages.

At Midtown they’ve been very good at putting things in cabinets to keep them away from nibbles, but this time of year they just have more packages than they do have space to accommodate them,' Ms Marion said.

One New York Times employee expecting a treat from The Vermont Brownie Company says they opened a gnawed box to find only a card inside.

Our brownies are individually wrapped so they stay fresh,' the company's note read to the recipient.

Other more sturdy boxes, in one example holding a gift of international chocolates, arrived to their office building more lucky they report with mere teeth marks around the packaging.

It's a surprise since the kind of rats that infest New York City called the Norway rat, are capable of chewing through glass, cinder block, wire, aluminum and lead, according to the National Pest Management Association.

Without the total number of known packages destroyed at other post office branches around the city, with a report by the Gothamist suggesting a second office in the city, a worker at the midtown office signaled to a Times' reporter:

They do have a problem with rats here,' a worker at the office confessed to their reporter.

I've seen one, downstairs on the work floor. It was big, they said.

In size, the average subway rat in Manhattan is 16 inches long, with its thick, tapering tail accounting for about half of that length, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. On Monday the post office changed its usual visitation by an exterminator from every two weeks to once a week.

Ms Marion says that for items damaged in handling,' unless they were insured, there is no ability for compensation, 'regardless of the nature of the damage

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA 

Rat-Infested, Squid-filled Pirate Boat Sitting Off Alaska

The Seattle-based U.S. Coast Guard cutter Midgett, on a September Bering Sea fishing patrol, got the call for an abrupt change of course. For a days-long voyage, it cruised to the southwest to intercept a rusting, rat-infested vessel — suspected of illegal drift-net fishing — that had been boarded in international waters.

The vessel — the Bangun Perkasa — with 22 Chinese and Indonesian crew members — was not registered with any nation. So, it had been seized.

The Midgett's job was to escort the vessel back to the edge of Alaska's coastal waters in a marathon cruise that began Sept. 19 and ended earlier this week. To prevent evidence from being destroyed, some of the Midgett crew took turns standing watch and sleeping, aboard the Bangun Perkasa.

"These were pretty deplorable conditions," said Capt. Craig Lloyd, chief of response for the Coast Guard's 17th District. "In some cases, they were waking up, and there were rats crawling about."

The seizure of the Bangun Perkasa put a spotlight on international efforts to crack down on illegal high-seas drift-net fishing, which can ensnare birds, marine mammals, turtles and many other sea creatures as well as the targeted species and has been outlawed by a United Nations convention.

Each year, the U.S. Coast Guard joins with other nations to search remote sections of the international waters of the Pacific for illegal drift-net vessels. This year, a Fisheries Agency of Japan spotter plane initially reported the sighting of the Bangun Perkasa to the Kodiak-based U.S. Coast Guard cutter Munro, which then conducted the initial boarding.

Typically, the illegal fishing vessels are turned over to law-enforcement authorities in the nation where they are homeported. But the Coast Guard determined that the Bangun Perkasa had no legal registration, so the vessel — along with its 10 miles of drift nets and 30-ton catch of squid — was seized.

As the Bangun Perkasa approached Alaska, the Coast Guard reached out to more than 20 federal, state and other agencies to develop a plan to handle the vessel, which under Alaska state law cannot legally enter coastal waters with rats on board.

Rats are an invasive species in the Aleutian Islands that can prey on birds and other wildlife. Though the port of Dutch Harbor already battles Norwegian rats, there are concerns that the vessel could harbor other species of rats or rodents that would intensify the problem — or rats that are resistant to rodenticides and could breed with the local population, according to Steve Ebbert, a biologist with the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.

Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, suggested the vessel be used for gunnery practice, and sunk.

"It would send an unambiguous signal that pirate fishing is unacceptable," Begich said in a written statement. " It will prevent this rust bucket from ending up back on the market where it most likely would fall into the hands of some other pirate."

But at least for now, that's not the plan.

Instead, the Coast Guard, working with partner agencies, awarded a contract to Magone Marine Service in Dutch Harbor to rid the vessel of rats while it remains moored in offshore waters and to make all necessary repairs. Dan Magone, the owner of the business, is a savvy veteran of all sorts of Aleutian Islands mishaps that require salvage, cleanups and other tasks.

"They don't call us unless its strange, that's a prerequisite," Magone said in a phone interview on Wednesday.

But Magone says he's up to the task of killing the rats, and that the most challenging part of the job has been working through the bureaucracy of agencies.

Once the rats are gone, the Bangun Perkasa, will be turned over to NOAA Fishery agents. They will inspect the vessel and decide what to do with it, and also inspect the 30-ton catch, and decide whether it can be sold.

If a sale is approved, the squid, which has been kept refrigerated, won't be marketed for human consumption, according to Julie Speegle, a NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman in Alaska.

The crew is already in Anchorage, and will be sent back to their home countries, according to Jeff Lisius, of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Source = Associated Press

George Williams
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Housing Worker Kills Monster, 3ft Rat .... and Says There Are More

A huge rat has been speared to death by a pitchfork at a sprawling New York housing project.

Jose Rivera, a Housing Authority worker, was clearing a rat hole at the Marcy Houses in Brooklyn when three of the creatures popped out.

He was only able to nab one. It appears to be almost three feet long, including the tail, is covered in white fur and looks well-fed.

Mr Rivera, 48, said: 'I hit it one time and it was still moving.

'I hit it another time and that's when it died. I'm not scared of rats but I was scared of being bitten.'

Naomi Colon, head of the Marcy Houses Tenant Association, said there have been sightings of the outsize rat for at least six years.

She said: 'The residents have told me that they've seen it running around with other rats.

'She lived with them. She ran into the same hole they ran in.'

Animal experts have identified the monster rodent as a Gambian pouched rat, which is a fairly common pet rat.

They are nocturnal, can grow to three feet, weigh four pounds or more and live seven or eight years, the New York Daily News reports.

Imports have been banned since 2003, when the rats were blamed for a monkeypox outbreak that affected 100 people.

Dr Paul Calle, director of zoological health at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the Marcy Houses specimen was probably an escaped or discarded pet who decided to join the regular rats.

He said: 'They are a very social animal and live in big groups in the wild.

'Our Norway rats are the closest big rodents it could accompany.'

He said they can be trained to sniff out landmines,adding that 'they're pretty remarkable animals'.

Tenants fear that the Gambian rat has been breeding with the Norway rats and spawning a super-breed of rodents.

But Mr Calle said the imported rat probably would not mate with local rats, and it couldn't reproduce if it did, because each is from a different genus.

One Marcy Houses resident, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals from city or property management, described the conditions there.

'In one day eight big size rats were killed,' he said, adding that they have been seen in the playground.

Another resident said: 'Adults had to grab children and run because a lot of rats came on the playground. The kids were screaming.'

Resident Stephanie Davis, 44, said: 'Even the cats are afraid of the rats. They get together and gang up on the cats.'

Pam Davis, 43, added: 'They're here day and night. We don't dodge bullets. We dodge rats. They're so big, they should charge them rent.'

Alex Johnson
Service Specialist
Environmental Health Services, Inc.

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

Click on image to enlarge

If rats want to get in they will! They will gnaw through anything in their path including wood, concrete, and metal! Rats have a total of 16 teeth in their mouth, 12 tiny molars (used for grinding), and four long, sharp, incisors in the front. Rat teeth are amazingly hard. They’re actually harder than copper, platinum and even iron. On the hardness scale the rat’s lower incisors rate 5.5, which is about the same as a steel nail (diamond is 10).

So how much pressure can a rat exhibit? Look at the chart below & be totally amazed!!!

The picture you see is a rat burrow in asphalt. This burrow is right up against the foundation and allows the rats to get inside the building.

George Williams,
General Manager - Staff Entomologist

Pest Control, RI, Pest Control, MA

(click to enlarge image)

Rodents have lanolin on their fur that causes tell-tale rub marks in heavily traveled pathways. Lanolin is yellow viscous oil in the fur that is made of fatty acids and esters. It allows rodents to squeeze into tight voids & spaces with great ease.

We know that when we do a rodent inspection that this is one of the signs we look for to determine activity. The more frequently traveled in the same area means there will be a buildup of lanolin. To the untrained eye it looks like oil but to us it is an important find that will aid in control because it tells us that it is a rodent highway.

The attached image shows the rub marks leading under a wooden deck.

by Ryan Metterville, Service Specialist