Help! Small Patio facing Alley in DC (rat problem)

9 years ago

last modified: 9 years ago

I came back from vacation about a month ago to find that rats had infested my 1 bed apartment in DC. It's been awful! I have a small patio on the side of the apartment facing the alley where there is a really bad infestation. The rats have been nesting under a concrete slab there/digging. I have no choice but to try and enclose the patio from all outside elements as the alley issues are never going away. I'm looking for cost effective and efficient ideas. I will need to enclose it with black aluminium to keep with the facade of the building (historic district), but I still want to be able to let light in, as it is a street level apartment. Any fencing would need to run top to bottom to join my street level apartment patio to the bottom of the 2nd floor patio. Any openings can't be wider than a quarter or rats can penetrate through. I need to also resolve how to make sure they don't dig under the concrete slab. Any suggestions/much appreciated advice is welcome!

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Comments (5)

apple_pie_order
9 years ago
Are you the owner or the renter? Is the new-looking wood fence temporary?
nyk in dc thanked apple_pie_order
shwshw
9 years ago
I wonder if an exterminator would be able to answer some of your questions. What a thing to have to go through. Best of luck.
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apple_pie_order
9 years ago
What can the city do about the alley trash problems/neighbors?

It's good to work with professional experienced exterminators. Some can be quite realistic and practical. Have the exterminators recommended removing the new wood fence, say for a year, to reduce the patio's shelter appeal? Making your area wide open and filling in every single gap could encourage rats to go elsewhere. Sometimes people (and restaurants) in historic areas use a short, open decorative aluminum fence to make it clear that the space is private, without actually blocking off sight lines. You might take a walk or use google streetview to see options that appeal to you.

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yvonnecmartin
9 years ago
I know that this is far-fetched, but consider luring feral cats to live in your area. There was a neighborhood in Chicago that was overrun with rats and a few cats solved that problem.
nyk in dc
Original Author
9 years ago
thanks everyone! this has been an ongoing issue for months. i'm working with the foremost expert in her field on the rat problem. the solutions posed are (a) remove the wood fencing (but as i flagged, i'm reluctant to do that for property value and privacy reasons) or (b) enclose the patio completely. the rat problems will always be in the alley. the city has increased abatement after intense lobbying, but the trash management issues in dc are left in the power of individual owners of their property, so if one neighbor is not taking care of their trash, the city generally won't step in unless you report the neighbor and they issue a one off trash citation. feral cats wouldn't work as dc has a law that means they can't be housed in the alley, and the effectiveness of cats is disputed amongst pest management experts. my expert is pessimistic about the long term issues being resolved as far as the alley goes, so i have to do as much as i can to protect my place from those elements.

what i'm really hoping to achieve from this post is some ideas of how to enclose/seal the patio and achieve the goal i'm looking for (no rats) but also make it functional and cost effective. so far, from what i've seen, i've thought maybe i could get a similar privacy screen to the below photo, and overlay it with 1/4 inch wire mesh, then tile the floor similar to the other photo below to give it some color. i'd also probably have to reinforce the base of the patio with steel of some kind too. not sure if anyone else has some other ideas or if you think my idea is stupid...hoping to use people as a sounding board to find a solution!

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