Rat and sanitation issues plague North End

by Ben Austin







NORTH END - All along Fleet Street there are heaps of wet cardboard and remains of McDonald's value meals, a paradise for dirty rodents.


State lawmakers passed a bill last week that will help enforce sanitation regulations in the city of Boston. State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, who has said sanitation and rat issues are at the top of his priority list, was a strong promoter of the bill and made it the subject of his first speech in the State House of Representatives on January 14.


"Right now if you put your trash out improperly in the city of Boston you get issued a green ticket," said Michlewitz. "But the city has no legislative teeth on collecting on those fines. So there's unpaid fines out there."


The "Green Ticket Bill", which passed almost unanimously through the state house, will add the fees to property taxes of residents who have unpaid fines.


By fining those who fail to obey sanitation regulations, Michlewitz argues there will be less trash in the streets and fewer rats in the neighborhood.


The apparent increase in the rodent population in the area coincides with an increased number of rodent-related complaints over the last few years. Some residents have said they see rats in the streets of their neighborhood every day.


"If it's late at night and you walk down the street toward Bova's, odds are that you're going to see a rat the size of a small cat," said Jesse Liebman, a 20-year-old Emerson College junior.





Liebman partly blamed the trash on the lack of dumpsters in the area, resulting in residents leaving trash on the sidewalk to be picked up every other day. Michlewitz says he plans to do more in the future to help solve these issues.


"We're just trying to keep the neighborhood as clean as possible," Michlewitz said.


Additional solutions, such as tightening the times that residents in the North End can put out their trash, have been brought up by City Councilor Sal LaMattina. Even so, some residents are still looking for more action.


"There are bait boxes that they haven't baited in over a year," said Judith Ives, a 25-year resident of the North End. "There's definitely been no change."