ANTI-RAT CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 137, 11 June 1943, Page 4

ANTI-RAT CAMPAIGN

SOME PEOPLE TRYING

MENACE NOT TRIFLING

The anti-rat campaign is not being pushed as it should by Wellington people, either in the business area, where the rat population is most thriving, or in residential, streets. Proof of that is given by the few applications for free poison at the City Health Office (above the Traffic Office, Mercer Street).

In the nine days since citizens were asked by the council to wage war on rats only about 400 issues of poison have been made, with 108 issues as the maximum for one day. That is, of course, much better than before the campaign began, for then four or five applications were about the daily average, but it is not nearly good enough to make the campaign any sort of a success. The department has many thousands of tins of poison ready for issue to adult applicants. It is unfortunate that traps are practically unprocurable. The manager of a large hardware store told a "Post" reporter that he had none and had none in sight—if he had the first dozen would not be for sale, for he needed them in his own premises. A few wire traps are available, but these are costly in comparison with break-backs. The shortage of traps would in normal circumstances have been enough to cancel arrangements for a campaign, but,the rat population has increased so much in the last year or so that an effort must be made to get it down. An effective but "safe" poison is available jto anyone who applies for it.

WHY RATS HAVE INCREASED.

Rats have increased because of the war. Refuse bins are a particular trouble. There is a bylaw which insists upon a standard covered refuse bin, but, practically speaking, these are no longer obtainable. Consequently all sorts of containers are being used, and while this is not avoidable the placing of refuse in bins and tins without lids will not be tolerated by the city inspectors. There is no doubt that open bins "lead directly to rat increase. .

War conditions have cut down transport for removal of trade refuse, and so there are collections of rat-harbour-ing stuff today which would not have been allowed previously. Makeshift stores, some of them large, mean more rat harbourage.

Restaurant conditions have gone back in the last year or two. For reasons directly and indirectly concerned with the war a number of these eating houses are not what they were, and rats are encouraged as a result.

Add to these factors that the business section stands largely upon reclaimed ground, always good rat country because it does not settle down solidly even after many years, and the rat problem shows up as serious.

The damage which they do in Wellington has been estimated at not less than a quarter of a million pounds a year, in destroyed and polluted food and goods, and, in lesser degree, in property damage. That is a lot of money, but it is still/ a small consideration in the light of what could come about in Wellington if there should, by an always possible chance, be introduced one of the abominable ratborne diseases. Should that happen the" anti-rat campaign would become this city's greatest single, endeavour, but too late to prevent a lot of trouble. The council is asking people to get into the campaign now and to keep it going.