Rat Problem | OBX Connection Message Board (2024)

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 8:14 AM

It seems that they may be attracted by garbage left in trash cans. I see rental properties all the time with trash can at the end of the driveways blown over and trash all over the place. Even in our own rental in Duck for the most part our guests do not use kitchen can trash bags. They just throw the trash and garbage directly into the cans. We have left supplies of tall kitchen trash bags and within a week they are all gone.

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 8:30 AM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 8:57 AM

Bring in the feral cats.

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 9:55 AM

It seems that they may be attracted by garbage left in trash cans. I see rental properties all the time with trash can at the end of the driveways blown over and trash all over the place. Even in our own rental in Duck for the most part our guests do not use kitchen can trash bags. They just throw the trash and garbage directly into the cans. We have left supplies of tall kitchen trash bags and within a week they are all gone.

What the heck is wrong with people?!?

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 11:05 AM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 11:14 AM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 11:40 AM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 11:47 AM

What the heck is wrong with people?!?

A lot of people turn their brains off when they enter Dare County.

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 11:53 AM

What the heck is wrong with people?!?

A lot of people turn their brains off when they enter Dare County.

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 11:56 AM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 11:58 AM

Interesting. A few years ago in Duck we were outside in the pool. My son (maybe 19 at that point) swore he saw a rat jump off a tree branch onto the roof of the neighboring house. I laughed and asked if he had snuck some of my beer. LOL

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 1:12 PM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 1:15 PM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 1:49 PM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 2:16 PM

Would love to bring my ferals to Ocean Sands once my house is finished! Just not sure how to catch them.

If you rent a Hav-a-Heart trap or borrow them from the cat feral rescue in Manteo you can catch them.

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 5:41 PM

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 7:02 PM

It seems that they may be attracted by garbage left in trash cans. I see rental properties all the time with trash can at the end of the driveways blown over and trash all over the place. Even in our own rental in Duck for the most part our guests do not use kitchen can trash bags. They just throw the trash and garbage directly into the cans. We have left supplies of tall kitchen trash bags and within a week they are all gone.

What the heck is wrong with people?!?

They're slobs.

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 7:16 PM

John

Date Posted: 2/22/2020 7:33 PM

In an area where paper bags are used for a reason at supermarkets, you'd think the sensitivity to recycling would be different. NOT.

In NYC, we get tickets for not recycling. $ 100 a pop minimum for each violation. Sanitation folks actually come around, open up garbage bags, poke sticks into them, etc. In our building, Sanitation has always been correct in their fines. We have quibbled and we have lost, rightfully so.

We continue to recycle when we are on OBX by taking stuff to the town recycling centers. Completely voluntary on our part.

tc8105, not everybody is a slob, but many will do whatever is easiest, cheapest, and fastest so long as nobody is paying attention. Until there is some enforcement action and charge-backs to the renters, not likely to be any change in behavior. All of which requires energy, effort, and maybe an increase in OBX taxes. Public goods like air, water, environment, and wildlife are often easy to abuse at little or no cost to the abuser. Taking good care of the public stuff, including our environment, is not costless.

OBX is so fragile!

Date Posted: 2/23/2020 6:23 AM

We often stay at an HOA. The first few years the Assns recycled, which we did. Last 3 or 4 years they have not. When we asked why, the response was that too many renters paid no attention to the recycling rules and tossed everything into the dumpster anyway, garbage bag or not. The Assns determined that it was too expensive to monitor and fix this behavior, and, they, therefore, abandoned recycling.

In an area where paper bags are used for a reason at supermarkets, you'd think the sensitivity to recycling would be different. NOT.

In NYC, we get tickets for not recycling. $ 100 a pop minimum for each violation. Sanitation folks actually come around, open up garbage bags, poke sticks into them, etc. In our building, Sanitation has always been correct in their fines. We have quibbled and we have lost, rightfully so.

We continue to recycle when we are on OBX by taking stuff to the town recycling centers. Completely voluntary on our part.

tc8105, not everybody is a slob, but many will do whatever is easiest, cheapest, and fastest so long as nobody is paying attention. Until there is some enforcement action and charge-backs to the renters, not likely to be any change in behavior. All of which requires energy, effort, and maybe an increase in OBX taxes. Public goods like air, water, environment, and wildlife are often easy to abuse at little or no cost to the abuser. Taking good care of the public stuff, including our environment, is not costless.

OBX is so fragile!

Date Posted: 2/23/2020 8:39 AM

Date Posted: 2/23/2020 8:44 AM

Date Posted: 2/23/2020 10:08 AM

The Ocean Sands FB page has posted a lot about the rat problem, sometimes with pictures. It’s a shame but rats, mice, etc, do exist and there isn’t much we can do about it besides try to keep everything clean.
Unfortunately, most owners are 4-500 miles away most of the year and cannot stay on top of the cleanliness, relying on others to, or no one. I haven’t really seen anything about the rat problem until this year so someone must have brought the “Coronavirus” of rats in from somewhere.

The rats have been around for a long time. I was first aware of them around 5 years ago after they turned my vegetable garden into match sticks. It makes no difference how clean one is, if they are seeking shelter, the nearest house is it. It that house proves too difficult to get into, they move on to the next one. In my opinion, the rats are Duck's "dirty little secret". It took a long time for the town, as well as the Associations to admit we had rats, and as a result, they became an epidemic before most of us were even aware they existed. In my area, I think it was the removal of the feral cat colony that allowed them to get out of hand.

Date Posted: 2/23/2020 10:48 AM

We often stay at an HOA. The first few years the Assns recycled, which we did. Last 3 or 4 years they have not. When we asked why, the response was that too many renters paid no attention to the recycling rules and tossed everything into the dumpster anyway, garbage bag or not. The Assns determined that it was too expensive to monitor and fix this behavior, and, they, therefore, abandoned recycling.

In an area where paper bags are used for a reason at supermarkets, you'd think the sensitivity to recycling would be different. NOT.

In NYC, we get tickets for not recycling. $ 100 a pop minimum for each violation. Sanitation folks actually come around, open up garbage bags, poke sticks into them, etc. In our building, Sanitation has always been correct in their fines. We have quibbled and we have lost, rightfully so.

We continue to recycle when we are on OBX by taking stuff to the town recycling centers. Completely voluntary on our part.

tc8105, not everybody is a slob, but many will do whatever is easiest, cheapest, and fastest so long as nobody is paying attention. Until there is some enforcement action and charge-backs to the renters, not likely to be any change in behavior. All of which requires energy, effort, and maybe an increase in OBX taxes. Public goods like air, water, environment, and wildlife are often easy to abuse at little or no cost to the abuser. Taking good care of the public stuff, including our environment, is not costless.

OBX is so fragile!

You used the "T" word. Please, not the "T" word. Keep that mentality up north.

What is the "T word"? Taxes? Without taxes there would be no pubic services - including schools and more.

Good for you and your family Crunch for making that extra effort when visiting the OBX. Agreed not all people are slobs.

And just to be clear, I am aware that recycling is not the same everywhere in the United States and that, unfortunately, it is becoming more difficult financially.

Date Posted: 2/23/2020 11:38 AM

Cleanliness helps, but only if everybody on the block is clean. As you mentioned, if one house is not, the rats will find it and spread out from there. They're nocturnal, and you'll see them running all over the place at, say, 3 AM, looking for food, water, shelter anywhere they can find it.

Property managers are not likely to do so well with this. The standard approach is a quick phone call to an exterminator to put down poison, and/or a handyman to patch up holes, both of which tend to be stop-gap measures. Not likely to delve into anything more comprehensive, like cats, or spend much time on it. Who are you going to call for cats?

Our experience here: biggest ongoing problem on the block are the rental buildings. Food and garbage. Affects the whole neighborhood. Absentee landlord is not a good thing when it comes to rats. Plug up ALL holes/openings to the building with concrete and/or flashing and copious amounts of nails/screws to hold it down. Cats. Poison bait traps where the cats can't get to. Monthly exterminator visits to replace the bait, as needed. Pea gravel and contractor mesh around tree pits. Rats hate pea gravel since it continuously falls into whatever hole they're trying to dig.

Single biggest thing in our building: pay close attention to all the work anybody does on this, including property managers, building managers, exterminators, handymen, etc. Make sure it is done right and well. Ask questions. Check. Get pictures. Some folks will otherwise cut corners if nobody is paying attention. Had a big problem a few years ago when the exterminator and building manager decided they would skip some steps in their monthly checklist.