How to Catch A Rodent, Build Community, and Move Towards Justice
Our neighborhood has rats. For a while no one talked about it - who wants to admit they have rats? Once we started, though, it became clear that the whole neighborhood is being affected. So recently, on a beautiful summer evening, over thirty neighbors crowded into our backyard to meet with the city health officer and a pest control company hired by the city to investigate the situation and suggest a plan of action.
People showed up concerned and frustrated, but one neighbor brought homemade whoopie pies to share and we were able to settle into a productive conversation about how to respond. Two things became clear right away. First, this isn’t going to be easy. Rats are smart and resourceful. As the CDC predicted in 2020, rats have become more aggressive following the pandemic. Second, it is going to require our neighborhood to work together to solve this. In the short term we need to get rid of as many rats as we can, and in the long term we need to change the way we compost, keep chicken food, feed birds, and more.
As the meeting ended, there was a lack of consensus about some important issues. Overall though, I was feeling grateful for our neighborhood. Many of us have the time and resources to plan and participate in neighborhood social events. Our neighborhood is high on social capital. We are bound together by this place where we live and seem willing to act collectively to try to solve this problem.
Then I started to feel uneasy. What about neighborhoods nearby where residents may have less resources (time and money)? What about minoritized community members who have had a history of negative experiences interacting with municipal officials? Will they experience the same level of responsiveness from city officials that we have? There is a long history in our country of environmental injustice and health inequity. How can we make sure that all of our neighbors have the support they need to deal with this particular issue? Several possibilities immediately come to mind
Create a language access plan so information about the rat situation, proper composting techniques, etc. is available to all community members.
Engage with the community (especially people who are furthest from justice) to discuss equitable funding options for addressing this situation. These options could include a transition to citywide garbage and compost pick-up; increasing city funding to respond to public health issues; or building a grassroots effort to create a rat mitigation fund through grants and donations so people without the resources to hire a pest control company have access to resources.
Update city zoning laws or ordinances to ensure developers and commercial property owners share in the responsibility of addressing the issue (development may be a factor in making rat problems worse). This could include requiring developers or property owners to assess rat activity on their site and take preventative measures before beginning construction or to pay a fee that would go into a fund to help mitigate problems in adjacent neighborhoods.
Our meeting about the rats provided a good start for our neighborhood. In the meantime, I hope our city officials will use this situation as an opportunity to consider ways to create just and equitable responses to emerging public health and environmental health issues. An approach that is thoughtful about creating access to solutions and removing barriers will benefit the whole community. Finding ways to ensure that all of our residents have access to information, a voice at the table and the resources they need to deal with the rats is a good place to start.