Rats thriving in Raleigh nightlife

Dining in style off restaurant trash, they get bigger every year, people say

RALEIGH -- A rustling in the bushes at night, skittering sounds on the pavement and the occasional squished pile of fur and whiskers remind Raleigh of its truly urban status.

The city has rats, the one downtown visitor it can't shake.

Cotton rats. Black rats. Norway rats. All forage on Raleigh streets, says Leann Richards at Raleigh's Critter Control.

They inhabit the alley next to the jail, the park benches in Moore Square and the trash bins behind downtown's new hipster bars. Rat lore has them growing bigger than beagle pups -- and increasing in furry number.

Construction makes downtown ripe for rats, especially when earth movers disturb their dens, Richards says. Since the city ripped up its downtown pedestrian mall, the rodents have stepped up their nocturnal scurrying.

"We've seen an increase since Fayetteville Street opened," said Wayne Schindler, Raleigh parks superintendent. "There was a lot of subterranean stuff."

Tell it to Rita Cyrus, who catches a nightly bus at Moore Square. This week, a fellow rider threw a bottle at an approaching rodent.

"I jump up on the bench," she said, insisting that someone spread the news. "I'm scared. If one runs up my pant leg, I'm going to own the city of Raleigh."

The city's exterminating contractor puts out bait in the parks and on Fayetteville Street. But rats, being rats, persist.

With new restaurants opening downtown, the rodents find fresh food in trash bins.

Charles Luttress sets up his pallet and sleeping bag at night in an alley behind Wilmington Street, where downtown traffic has been picking up for people, too.

"Rats come like cats," he says, adding that he has lived on the streets off and on for about five years. "They're pretty big. Every year, they get bigger."

Cold weather sends them inside, making them more visible. But the city's contractor puts out bait in Nash and Moore Square, Schindler says, so they mostly vanish and perish out of sight.

They like the Wake County jail, the parking garage on Hillsborough Street, Moore Square and Nash Square. A late-night rat hunt last week turned up three rat sightings in an hour: two under a trash bin in Nash Square and one hiding in an elephant ear plant in Moore Square.

Bird feeders attract them, Richards says. So does dog food. The Sir Walter Apartments downtown have asked tenants to stop leaving bird seed on the sidewalks -- a rat's delight -- though management explains that its notice was mostly for cleanliness' sake.

And while some may keep rats as pets, love for the rodents is sometimes hard to find.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes them as "offensive in many ways" and warns that they carry diseases that are health hazards to both humans and animals, such as typhus fever, trichinosis, plague, infectious jaundice, salmonella food infections and rat mite dermatitis.

Rats.

They're a consequence that follows urban growth, like yuppies and high rent.