LONGPORT – Weeks after the borough addressed residents’ concerns about rats making the Beach Patrol boathouse and bayfront park their home, Mayor Nicholas Russo issued a statement on the borough’s website confirming that the rats have found new homes in other locations.
Downbeach.com reported on July 18 that the borough had taken steps to address the problem and their efforts were proving to be successful in evicting the rats from their burrows at the base of the boathouse.
Although rats and other rodents are indicative of shore living in a town surrounded on three sides with water, eliminating their feeding source was a big help in getting them to move to other locales.
At that time, Administrator A. Scott Porter said Beach Patrol staff initiated a clean up of the building that houses boats and equipment used by lifeguards. The borough hired a pest control company to bait the rodents, lifeguards were told not to bring any food into the boathouse, and rat holes were filled in and a dumpster that had a hole in it was replaced with a newer one. Signage was erected noting the dumpster is for borough use only.
“I am happy to report that by initiating a ‘full court press’ approach, we have at least won this battle against the rat complaint problem,” Russo said in the statement. “Our challenge has been to keep residents from using it for their own personal trash and garbage.”
Since taking these steps, borough officials have seen a major improvement and hope the problem can be totally eliminated with the help of all residents.
“So for now, we firmly believe that we have the rodent situation under control and have had no complaints,” Russo said.
Residents can help out by patrolling their own properties to eliminate any potential rodent food sources, such as dog and cat feces, trash not properly secured with a lid, and bird feeders.
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