  Stecks77 Member Username: Stecks77 Post Number: 94 Registered: 08-2006 |
I thought this would be a nice article to post in conjunction with the corpse collector piece in the NY Times. There is an old thread about rats in the suburbs but I'm interested to hear if anyone has any good stories out there related to dealing with rats in Detroit? A FEW MINUTES WITH: A guy who kills Detroit rats BY JIM SCHAEFER FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER September 15, 2006 Ralph Barela, 59, of Detroit pokes his Rat Wand -- half of a fishing pole -- into places he thinks rats may be hiding. If he finds them, he poisons them. He says, sure, rats can be scary, but hey, it's a living. (STEPHEN McGEE/Detroit Free Press) He's not the Grim Reaper. Still, you really don't want Ralph Barela to show up on your property and start poking around with a long stick. If Barela comes by, you've probably got an unkempt yard with some tall weeds. Or an old woodpile sitting right on the ground. Or a bunch of trash out in the alley. If Barela comes by, he comes as an environmental inspector for the City of Detroit, bearing a pad of tickets that carry $100 fines, and a big batch of packets filled with poison. If Barela, 59, comes by, he's not visiting for fun. He's there because you have rats. QUESTION: They call you the rat man? ANSWER: Yeah, the folks when they see me pull up, and they see me get the bait and the little rod they look at me and say, here comes the rat man. And some of them are glad to see me. Some of them, like young boys and stuff like that, they just sort of make jokes about the rats. ... As long as they pay me, I don't care. Q: How much of your job involves baiting for rats? A: Every Friday and every Monday we go out and bait. ... The rest of the time we are enforcing litter and weeds and stuff like that. Q: Forget about all that other stuff, let's talk about rats. What can you tell me about rats? A: Well, I know that they're the Norwegian rat, supposedly imported from Norway. ...They can squeeze in a hole as big as a quarter. ... Uh, what else? Q: What's the biggest rat you ever saw? A: I would say maybe about 11, 12 inches. Q: Oooh, that's a pretty big rat. A: Well, no, not really. ... Yeah, well, maybe. ...But when I used to drive a garbage truck, then you really saw rats. Q: I'll bet. A: When we were in the alleys, picking up those containers, they used to jump in the trucks. Q: That would scare the hell out of me. A: Scared me, too. Q: So you use poison to kill them, basically. A: Yes. Q: Wouldn't a real man just jump in there and use his bare hands? A: I haven't met a real man, I guess. Q: They ever touch you? Run across your shoes? A: Oh, some of them run across my boots, yeah. That scares me. Q: You ever just run out of here shrieking? A: No, no. I remember they gotta pay me. Q: What's the most you've ever seen in one location -- that you actually eyeballed? A: Maybe about 10 or so in one area. They come squirming out when you start pushing the bait inside (a rat hole). Q You ever have nightmares? A: No, not really. I had more nightmares when I was in Vietnam. (Chuckles). Contact JIM SCHAEFER at 313-223-4542 or jschaefer@freepress.com. http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll /article?AID=/20060915/NEWS01/ 609150388/1003/NEWS01&template =printart |
