caity

Broken glass on sidewalk in front of 102 Salem St.

Abandoned shopping cart on the corner of Salem and Tremont.

Syringe on street, intersection of Spring and Tremont.

Abandoned shopping cart on the corner of Salem and Tremont Streets.

Please help. The back yards of 109 Gilman St. and 109 Walnut Street, which are connected, are severely infested with rats. I moved into this neighborhood last spring to an apartment with a back porch that overlooks these yards. I complained about this problem numerous times last spring and summer with no relief. I just went out to my porch to hang some flowers, only to look down and see seven gigantic rats lumbering around these yards. This is completely unacceptable. There has to be something the city can do to hold the landlords accountable for the disgusting state of their properties. It is a health issue, a quality of life issue, and a serious injustice to others in the neighborhood, one of the last affordable areas of the city.

Rat running down Jasper St sidewalk.

Rat running down sidewalk

Another rat milling around on Jasper Street.

More rats in our neighborhood this evening. One on Jasper St., three more in the adjacent backyard (109 Walnut St.). The sewers in this neighborhood have been baited numerous times, so I don't think that is fixing the issue. There is excess trash in the neighborhood and the rats were running in and out of the trash barrels on the property.

There is a large pile of furniture next to the train tracks close to where they pass under Walnut Street - a living room chair, a mattress, and numerous other items of furniture in a pile clearly visible from the Walnut Street bridge that looks like it was just dumped over the fence and left there.

I just encountered an enormous rat (the size of a small dog) scurrying down the street. A bit of an unnerving sight on a sunny summer's day.