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Sacramento Hires Company To Exterminate Rats At Future Home Of Fire Station

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The city of Sacramento said it began exterminating more than a hundred rats after discovering an infestation in a vacant lot where a new fire station is slated to go.

People who live there told CBS13 they haven't seen any activity.

If you visit Sacramento's River District at Ahern and North A Streets after dark, you may see rats scurrying around the neighborhood in search of food.

"Oh yeah, you see them all the time," said Dorlene Johnson, who lives in a nearby homeless encampment. "They even come out in the day time."

Johnson said she lives in her car which was parked next to the vacant lot where the rats were found.

On Tuesday, she said she was forced to move her car so crews could fence off the vacant lot.

"They're pushing us out with no place to go," she said.

The move comes after a resident of a nearby housing unit contacted city councilmember Jeff Harris to report the rat infestation.

"I looked and this mound was alive with activity," said Harris. "I would say in the first minute I saw at least a hundred, maybe more."

Harris believes the problem stems from food.

"What we do know is the public feeding of people on the street, there's a causative element here," said Harris.

On Tuesday, he said the city hired a company to place traps to get the problem under control.

"If there were rat traps, they would be in there you would think and you would see them and I have not seen dead rats in rat traps," said Stacey Selmants who lives at Quinn Cottages.

Residents we talked with haven't seen the traps so we asked Harris, where are they?

"You can't get close enough perhaps to see the traps, but we have 40 traps on the lot right now," he said.

Harris said the traps are baited with food to get the rats acquainted with them.

On Saturday, he said, crews will place poison inside them to exterminate the large rodents.

"The poison and rats will stay inside the traps so the poison won't get out into the community," he said.

As for how many rats Harris expects will be caught, he said he doesn't know.

"We're actually assessing the extent of the infestation as they trap rats so we're going to keep a tally to keep track of how intense this is," added Harris.

For now, Harris said people at a nearby homeless encampment will have to keep out of the area.

"It's not our intention to move people for the heck of it. Our intent is to prevent a disease outbreak," he said.

The lot has been vacant for years.

Harris said this is the first time the city has dealt with a rat infestation there.

Construction on the fire station is scheduled to begin this fall.

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