Buffalo Rats

Buffalo rats, won't you come out tonight?
Come out tonight, Come out tonight?
Buffalo rats, won't you come out tonight,
And dance by the light of the moon.

Only they aren't waiting for night. Rats are running amok in Buffalo, New York with complaints more than doubling since last year. And they're moving to the nice areas of town, too.

Buffalo’s rat busters thought they had eliminated the nasty rodent a couple of years ago with garbage totes, but this summer, rat complaints skyrocketed by nearly 90 percent .

The city’s pest control officers think they know one reason for the resurgence: Blame it on a dry spell.

“They’re coming out looking for more food and water,” Frank Poincelot, the city’s head exterminator, said of the local pest population.

Animal control experts have never seen rodents, raccoons and other four-legged foragers move around so much during the summer, said City Sanitation Director Steven J. Stepniak. As a result, the same wayfaring animal can trigger multiple complaints.

New figures were released Monday showing that since June 1, the city logged 717 rodent complaints, compared with 380 calls in the same period last year. Since April 1, rat-related complaints have more than doubled over 2006 levels.

And the rats have become equal opportunity pests, making their presence known in even some of Buffalo’s most stable neighborhoods. For example, First Deputy Mayor Steven M. Casey reported two rodent sightings this summer outside his Parkside-area home.

Hopefully they get under control rapidly. (Side note: the "Buffalo" referred to in the song Buffalo Gals is Buffalo, New York. At least it better be, or we have a completely different problem involving mutants.)