Inside D.C.’s rat control academy
Keeping pests at bay requires finding and understanding clues others may have missed
WASHINGTON — The instructor had a warning for the students of the District of Columbia’s rat academy: Don’t tell onlookers what you’re up to. “We don’t want anyone saying, ‘Wow, there’s a whole academy and they are standing at the front door of this property,’ ” said Bobby Corrigan, an urban rodentologist leading the class. “You are just doing a survey. The word ‘rat’? I rather you not drop the word ‘rat’.”
On a recent summer afternoon in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, about 30 property managers, private exterminators and local government employees filled a dimly lit basement conference room at The Line hotel to train as soldiers in Washington’s never-ending war on rodents. Soon, they’d enter enemy territory: an alley, a tiny park and a row of restaurants.
The annual two-day rat academy came as rodent complaints reach record highs in Washington. The city received more than 6,000 rat complaints to 311 last year, up from about 5,000 in 2017.
After deploying everything from dry ice to solar trash cans, city officials are testing sterilization this year as the newest weapon in their arsenal. It’s been tried elsewhere, including New York City, with some success.
Practical training
At the rat academy, students sat through presentations that featured everything from how to spot signs of infestation to obtaining permits for applying pesticides.
Gerard Brown, who leads the rat control division of the D.C. Department of Health, said he relocated the rat academy from downtown to Adams Morgan so students can gain practical experience on the frontline.
The neighborhood has a bustling dining scene and, as a result, plentiful trash — ideal conditions for rodents.
It’s also where he grew up.
“When I was a little boy, the rats were in this alley,” said Brown, 63. “Now we’re dealing with the great great-grandkids of those rats.”
As part of a pilot program, D.C.’s health officials are trying to stop the next generation by placing bait boxes in nine locations across the city that contain a compound designed to interfere with ovulation in female rats and with sperm production in male rats. The bait is a sweet, fatty liquid that appeals to rodents.
“You know how the food is so good you lick the plate?” Brown remarked as he looked at a bait box containing sterilizing liquid in the Adams Morgan alley. “They are starting to eat the container.”
But the city lacks data on whether it’s working.
At the Adams Morgan alley, the city’s contractor for rat sterilization has installed a camera to measure the effects.
“The idea is we don’t see baby rats,” said Brown. “If there are a lot of juveniles and babies running around, we know something is not right.”
Already, something was not right. Brown hadn’t received any photos of rats yet. He figured the camera must be in a bad location as he examined the contraption, which resembled a bulky walkietalkie wrapped around a metal fence post.
It’s not like there were no rats around to say cheese.
Case in point: The carcass caught in a nearby snap trap, the sunbaked body resting near the back door of a restaurant and a furry creature spotted hobbling under a dumpster.
“If he’s not dead, he’s dying soon,” said Yaqin Upshaw, another D.C. Health inspector, as he walked by.
“Come on, we gotta keep moving,” said Dan Coats, a Delawarebased property manager.
Adding it all up
Coats and Upshaw were among the academy students scoping out the blocks surrounding The Line hotel to identify factors enabling the rat population to thrive.
Those metal bowls of water left out for dogs at restaurant patios? Also a great hydration source for rats.
The cracks in the brick steps near restaurants? An easy escape path for rats.
“That bait isn’t doing anything,” Coats observed as he pointed at a bait box in an awkward position on The Line hotel’s landscaping.
“That’s why it’s important for people in your position to know where they should be,” replied Brown, the District’s rat czar.
Coats came to the rat academy because workers at several properties he oversees in Northwest Washington have been trying to keep rodents at bay. He’s been deluged by conflicting information from pest companies and wanted to get educated.
Coats grew frustrated as he walked around Adams Morgans and spotted open dumpsters, unsealed doors and other mistakes beckoning rodents. No single entity is in charge of rat abatement for the neighborhood, where businesses hire private pest control companies to operate separately from government efforts.
“It’s a public health risk,” Coats said to Brown while they were standing in the alley.
As the rat academy students filed back into their basement conference room, they traded notes on what they saw in the field, and how they could use what they learned to limit food sources and to restrict movement for the rats of Adams Morgan.
Their instructor warned them they just got a taste of the complicated battle.
“People think just put out a bunch of poison and kill them,” said Corrigan. “You are now trained to see what others are overlooking.”