Warwick rat infestation

By: News Staff

Email: news@abc6.com

Twitter: @ABC6

WARWICK, R.I. (WLNE) – Residents of one particular neighborhood are not happy about their new neighbors who have recently moved in.

Rats are creeping into the neighborhood and the construction at T.F. Green Airport could be to blame.

Bonnie Authelet has been a resident near the intersection of Post Road and Elmwood Ave for five years, but recently she has noticed an influx of rats in the area.

Authelet explains that the she has seen the rats migrate to the businesses near her apartment building due to a pile up of trash. “It’s gross and it skeeves me out. It’s terrible, I don’t know why they don’t clean it up,” she added.

Warwick Councilman Jeremy Rix explained to ABC6 that “it’s a very serious problem anytime that any individual, even one person, is being affected by this.”

Rix says that recently his phone has been ringing off the hook with people complaining about rats invading their neighborhood. He says construction related to the runway extension project at T.F. Green is causing this infestation.

“The heavy machinery compacting the concrete caused a lot of vibrations in the ground that disturbed the animals in that area and caused them to move out” he explained.

He also added that Warwick has begun to take preventative measures to insure the control of this rat infestation.

The health department has been putting out traps hoping to get the problem under control.

In addition to this, the city has also sent out letters to homeowners urging them to not leave food outside and to cover their trash bins.

Meanwhile, residents like Authelet hope this problem soon gets under control. “We are all seniors and disabled here so when you go walking around you don’t want to run in to one of them because you don’t know what they are going to do!”

©WLNE-TV / ABC6 2017