MENACE OF RATS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22792, 28 July 1937, Page 15

MENACE OF RATS

HUGE LOSS TO CITY AUCKLAND'S VAST NUMBERS TASK OF OFFICIAL CATCHER RESPONSIBILITY OF CITIZENS It is estimated that rats cost Aucklanders about £250,000 a year for damage to buildings and the destruction of foodstuffs and clothing, and according to City Council officials there is a rat for every one of the 211,913 persons in Auckland. In other words it costs each person something like £1 a year to feed and house each rat. The City Council's official rat-catcher in the metropolitan area accounts for (300 a month. They arc all sent in bags to the Auckland Hospital laboratory, for rats arc notorious carriers of the flea which spreads bubonic plague. "Cunning as a Rat"

The rat-catcher snares his victims with an astonishing variety of tasty baits, as rats arc careful in their dietary, and equally wary. Not for nothing goes the saying, "As cunning as a rat." Recently, for example, a city factory which employs about 60 or more workers became aware of the presence of a great many rats. Breakhack traps were set with pieces of cheese, but no rats were caught. Then someone thought of smoked fish, but that failed, and bacon, meat and cake followed in quick succession. During one lunch hour a sanitary inspector visited the factory,, and he noticed that some of the workers threw small pieces of bread into the yard. That night the traps were baited with bread-crusts, and several rats were caught. 8000 Killed Yearly

On an average the official rat-catcher has accounted for about' 8000 rats a year in the last 10 years or so. Mr. H. Paull, chief sanitary inspector to the Auckland City Council, said yesterday that it was not the council's duty to trap rats, and when inspectors fouiid traces of rats in city buildings, it became the responsibility of the owners of the buildings to take stops to eliminate the pests. Last year 10,-523 packets of poison were issued free to over 3000 Aucklanders, who were troubled with rats, and nearly 9000 traps were set by the council's ratcatcher.

Ferro-concrcte has done much to reduce the hiding-places for the rodents, and gradually the old dilapidated buildings are disappearing from the face of the city. Years ago the rats made havoc with the contents of wooden buildings, and stocks of grain, flour .and clothing had to be destroyed, while the buildings themselves suffered thousands of pounds' worth of damage