There's more to Cambridge academia than Harvard and MIT

Ask anyone who lives in a downtown area of a big city: rats are one big existence bane.

Once in a while, at dawn or dusk, I spot them scurrying across a sidewalk, heading for cover in the bushes. Or slithering down a sewer. Once in a while, when I'm out walking, I come across a dead rat flattened on the pavement - and I utter a little atheist's prayer of thanks that there's one less of these nasty bastards out there marauding around.

Sometimes, when I'm in bed, I hear them rustling around in the trash. Not my trash, mind you. I'm the goody-two-slippers who gets up at the crack of dawn to take my garbage and recycle out. Alas, despite my regular texts, notes, and signs, not everyone in my building follows in my slippers. They bring their trash out the night before, leaving hours for rats to root through the their black plastic garbage bags. Not the special peppermint-infused, supposedly rat-proof white bags I buy on Amazon and leave out in the laundry room for everyone to use if they must take their trash out the night before. 

In the early hours of the a.m., when I'm bringing my trash out, I find the others' bags chewed open, the sidewalk strewn with eggshells, avocado peels and pits, apple cores. Sometimes, I pick it up; mostly I leave it for Blessed Brian of Unit One who takes care of it. 

I live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Boston, and there are rat traps - oblong-shaped black boxes set out and serviced by the city - all over the place: front gardens, back walks, up against walls, up against trees. 

When you're up against rats, you have to be vigilant. 

I've never seen a rat in this building -just on occasional mouse - but if I were to see one on the inside, the For Sale sign would be up on the outside within hours.

I. HATE. THEM.

So I was pleased to read about a recent two-day consortium, the Cambridge Rat Academy, "a gathering of the sharpest minds in rat-extermination, to plan the counteroffensive" against these noxious beasts. Attendees came "to learn how to hone their rat-fighting skills and brush up on the latest techniques for spotting and exterminating rodents."

“Rodents tend to be overlooked in general by everybody on every level,” said Robert Corrigan, a well-regarded consultant and the academy’s featured speaker. “That’s a problem, because the rodents are taking advantage of us. We’re just like, ‘Oh, put out some poison. Or just put out some traps. Or go get a guy.’ You need to say, ‘No, if we’re going to control rodents in our cities, we need depth.’”

Corrigan has led dozens of Rodent Academies and travels the country giving seminars on the latest techniques for rat mitigation, particularly as the industry moves away from using toxic chemicals as the go-to solution to the problem.

“It’s much more than pulling out a box of poison,” Corrigan said.

Rat prevention these days, he said, is about “integrated pest management,” or IPM, which encompasses all the nonpoison-related means available to keep rodents at bay. Think: landscaping that dissuades rats from building burrows, and sealing off foundations and exterior walls. (Source: Boston Globe)

My first thought was that Corrigan was "just" an exterminator who somewhere along the line figured out that there was more money in being and expert than being the guy who sets the traps. 

Well, turns out that Corrigan does have a pest control consulting business, which sure sounds like exterminator to me. But he's also a rodentologist with a PhD in entomology from Purdue. (A quick google, and I learn that entomology may sound buggy, but that "integrated pest management" falls under its mantle.)

Cambridge is one city that's been having some success wtih IPM. Reported rat sightings are down; rat killings are up. (Cambridge uses "smart boxes" that electrocute rats; I don't believe Boston's rat traps are all that smart.)

There's another approach to IPM, and that's a canine-based method from Unique Pest Management. UPM is based in DC, but they spend about a week each month in the Boston area with their trained ratters. UPM's Scott Mullaney brought one of his ratters, a Patterdale terrier to the Academy with a "kill count under her collar in the 'thousands.'" 

Once, he said, a team of three dogs killed 88 rats in three hours. 

I'm always thinking about getting a dog, but would never consider a ratter, cute and effective as they might be. What would I do if my cute, effective little ratter actually caught one.

Shudder, shudder, shudder to the nth. 

Meanwhile, I'm just happy to learn that there's more to Cambridge academia than Harvard and MIT.  

And more than happy to learn that the City of Boston has hired Bobby Corrigan to analyze our situation and make some recommendations. 

Cambridge Rat Academy. Boola boola! Sis-boom-ba!