Phoenix Neighborhood Determined to Halt Invasion by Vermin

In another procession of unwanted coastal imports, the latest to infest this state comes from, of course, California. Only this time Arizona isn’t inheriting its haughty neighbor’s noxious air, snarled traffic or even suburban sprawl. Now it’s rats.

The big-eared, ropy-tailed pests hitched a ride in trucks from Central California’s citrus groves and have taken up residence in the roofs of one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, known for its forest of fruit trees. The rats have been gorging on oranges, tangerines and grapefruits for weeks.

While the thousands of roof rats don’t yet pose a health hazard, state officials fear that if the infestation is not contained, the rats may find their way to Arizona’s lucrative commercial citrus groves.

The critters’ incessant gnawing already has caused at least one house fire, after a rat chewed through electrical wiring in an attic. They are also getting into power substations and have been responsible for outages.

It has been a siege. Almost overnight, this quiet neighborhood has been inundated with fliers from extermination companies, fruit pickers and landscaping firms offering help in the fight. Construction-size trash bins are parked on street corners where residents can dump fruit, which the rats rely on for food and water.

So far, thousands of tons of citrus have been harvested, and food banks are no longer accepting fruit. The excess is being trucked to Indian reservations in the state.

“We are onto something here that is a little challenging, to say the least,” said Al Brown, director of the Maricopa County Environmental Services Department, whose job it is to eradicate the rats.

Most rodents aren’t native to Arizona, other than tiny desert pack rats. In fact, urban rats are so uncommon here that the county has no rodent control plan.

That became obvious to residents when they called a community meeting last month to solicit help from their local government. In an elementary school cafeteria overflowing with more than 500 spooked homeowners, county officials shrugged and acknowledged that government could do only so much.

In just weeks, residents have mobilized, and the area is replete with home-grown pied pipers. Here, in an enclave on the edge of Scottsdale known as Arcadia, residents have organized a massive door-to-door campaign to rid themselves of Rattus rattus, which roosts in attics and creeps out at night to feast on citrus.

Hundreds of residents have organized into work gangs, pulling fruit off the trees, cutting house-hugging shrubs for elderly neighbors and even loaning cats and dogs for patrol duty.

In sidewalk confabs, residents discuss their disgust with the invasion and their conviction that the whole thing is just another unwholesome hand-me-down from California.

“Like we always say, eventually, we get everything from California, like it or not,” huffed one resident.

Phoenicians are tough desert dwellers who scarcely flinch over finding black widows and scorpions in their backyards. But the rats are unsettling.

They began showing up in late December, but their booming population became apparent in recent weeks. A female and her offspring can account for as many as 7,000 rats a year, health officials said. Because the rats have a life span of just about a year, the attics and trees here are a virtual nursery teeming with pups.

Barry Paceley and his wife, Joan, are longtime Arcadia residents and began the anti-rat campaign Arcadia Neighbor to Neighbor with the help of block watches, homeowners associations, churches, schools and the Boy Scouts.

The group has at least one person who monitors each block, and there is a hotline to call for help. On weekends, members of the group fan out to pull fruit off neighborhood trees.

Even as they loathe them, residents pointedly note the California rats’ exceptional lack of toughness. In rodent manuals, the urban-dwelling Norway rat is described as “large and robust,” while the 6-inch, brownish roof rat is noted as “sleek and graceful.”

Scores have drowned after leaning over the edges of backyard swimming pools and falling in. Nor do the creatures seem to be able to negotiate the swift-running Arizona Canal that bisects Arcadia.

Paceley, meaning only to shoo one off his patio, said he inadvertently exterminated a roof rat with a soft tap of a broom handle. Another time he caught one and put it in the backyard with his cat, attempting to train the feline to recognize the rat’s scent. Two tentative swipes from the cat and the rat was dead.

“They aren’t tough at all, not like a good New York rat,” Paceley said.

The rats seem to be using Kathy Bishop’s house as a staging area. Her property has only one small orange tree, but Bishop is convinced the rats at her house are making nightly forays into the neighbors’ trees.

“One night I heard a sound on the roof, like a tiny stampede,” she said, shuddering. “We thought it was a cat. My friend has them and she says it sounds like they are playing soccer in your attic. They say these rats are quiet but, believe me, if you’ve got them, you know it.”

The desert neighborhood’s lushness could prove to be its downfall. The area’s bearded palms, oleanders and bougainvillea will become homes for the rats when the summer heat drives them out of attics. Residents have been told to dramatically trim plants and shrubs.

The county has placed nearly 10,000 bait traps on top of utility poles, readying for the exodus. County health officials concede eradication is not likely but are optimistic the rats can be contained to Arcadia’s 18 square miles.

John and Nancy Savoy watched as their family dog barked madly at the dozens of orange trees in their backyard. They never knew rats were in the trees until John noticed the telltale “orange carcass”--a quarter-sized hole where a rat stuck its head into the fruit and hollowed it out.

“I did what they told us to do, set a snap trap in the attic,” John Savoy said. “My wife heard scratching and gnawing, which is not pleasant, I can tell you. Then one night, SNAP! I knew we’d got one.”

Savoy’s son-in-law was dispatched to remove the rat. Poison was set out. Then the homeowner’s nightmare: a poisoned rat fell between the walls of the Savoy’s pantry.

Nancy Savoy’s face twists into a mask of horror as she tells the story.

“Smell? Oh my . . .,” she said. “It was a dead rat for Pete’s sake.”