Rat Attack

It was hardly visible except for a fuzzy gray blur. It wasn't even that big — far from "Princess Bride" proportions. But the students in senior Alexander Asare-Wassow's NSL class screamed anyway.

"AHHH! IT'S A RAT! IT'S A RAT!"

The school's rodent problem dates back to the old campus, but the current method of dealing with these pesky invaders is far from traditional.

This is not to say that there has ever been a shortage of creative solutions to a vermin problem. Beyond the time-honored snap-trap à la "Tom and Jerry," vendors these days offer the "quick-kill" trap, which features a spring-loaded blade that descends on its victims with blinding speed, French Revolution-style. And if you're the type of person who prefers poison, there are more flavors of rodenticide than Kool-Aid. Should you choose an anticoagulant to precipitate massive internal bleeding? A nerve agent of some sort? Polonium-210? The volume of options is positively paralyzing.

That's not even counting some of the more exotic approaches to rodent management. In his 1896 book Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-Catcher, Ike Matthews advocates the use of "rat pits," which entail filling a ditch with rodents and tossing in your favorite ratting dog to create a mass grave for Mickey and friends. Matthews suggests terriers or pit bulls for best results.

Unfortunately for Matthews, that form of constructive entertainment didn't last long. Tastes change, and the landscape of vermin control in particular has shifted dramatically in the past century. Humane societies gained political clout and advocated ethical treatment of our furry friends. During the '60s and '70s, environmentalists drew attention to the plight of the endangered birds of prey that, misinterpreting the death-seizures of a poisoned rat as an invitation to lunch, ultimately met similar ends.
This shift in attitude is the reason that, when it comes to eliminating rats, Blair's current modus operandi is neither the poison bottle nor the trap. It's the mop.

Building services manager Yakubu Agbonselobho, for one, swears by it. When he first was hired last February, he admits that the school housed a few too many critters. "There was a big problem. Mice here and there — we got a lot of complaints," Agbonselobho says.

Instead of starting an aggressive poison campaign, Agbonselobho took a more conservative tack. He approached the rat problem at its cause: the crumbs scattered among Blair's nooks and crannies. "With no food there would be no mice," Agbonselobho explains. He praises his staff's hard work, leaving no cabinet or corner uncleaned or unswept. Furthermore, monitoring stations (mouse traps) were set up in problem areas and checked regularly.

This two-pronged approach has worked wonders, Agbonselobho says. Mouse reports are now a monthly instead of weekly occurrence, and the school is markedly cleaner, even in those areas typically out of sight. "It used to be that the trash room was a mess," he says. "Now you can eat your lunch off the floor."

Blair's approach to its rodent problem is not exactly groundbreaking, though. It closely follows the principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a 1998 state policy aimed at increasing the safety and reducing the environmental impact of dealing with vermin. "It used to be, 10 years ago, we would come over and spray right away," says Terry Baumanis, supervisor of MCPS's IPM office. Now, the strategy is more holistic: Baumanis's workers still install traps and other pest deterrents, but she stresses that these tactics are only a part of the solution. Sanitation and monitoring are the two watchwords of the IPM approach.

The typical response to a rat incident begins with the installation of snap traps or glue boards in areas of suspected rodent activity. The traps, along with visual inspection for gnawing and fecal pellets, help to gauge the severity of the infestation. Usually, the problem ends with the traps. "For every five [rat sightings], I will bet you there is only one rat. And we catch it," says Agbonselobho, adding that poisons are used only as a last resort, for health and safety reasons.

The guidelines of IPM should not be confused with those advocating the humane treatment of animals. The traps used by MCPS are typically fatal. Even when live traps are used, the Environmental Protection Agency's IPM manual for schools recommends killing captured animals by either drowning them in soapy water or asphyxiating them in a makeshift gas chamber constructed out of a garbage bag tied to an idling car's exhaust pipe.

But no matter how the rats are trapped, the problem always returns to the food that lures them to the school in the first place. Agbonselobho cites the example of a case in the summer. "We had crews following groups of people, cleaning up after them," he says. "Nothing was on the floor for more than 10 minutes before we picked it up." The reward? Agbonselobho began to find, scattered among the hallways, rats that had literally starved to death.

Until Blazers improve their table manners — or at least stop throwing garbage on the floor, the only short-term solution is psychological. Media assistant Susan Payne-Madden has learned to embrace the media center's mice, even giving them names. She's currently mourning Jerry and Harry, who were found dead one morning near media specialist Lisa Hack's office. Madden's strategy is the equivalent of turning lemons into lemonade — or in her case, rodents into roommates.