The Medford City Council is working to combat the city’s rodent problem with new ordinances and enforcement tactics, in partnership with the Medford Health Department. The efforts come amid a recent increase in rodents and wild animals such as rats and raccoons, causing concerns about sanitation issues and the spread of disease.
The city is drafting multiple ordinances that would increase enforcement tactics to help solve the rodent problem in Medford. One of these ordinances, called the “Wildlife Feeding Ordinance,” would impose a fine on residents who feed wildlife on public or private property in Medford.
Notes from a June city council meeting say the ordinance will give the “Board of Health/Code Enforcement the authority to do enforcement/issue warnings and tickets when overfeeding/inappropriate feeding of wildlife is creating nuisances or health hazards.”
The ordinance will undergo a second city council vote this Tuesday; if passed, it will become city law. City Council Vice President Kit Collins, who wrote the ordinance, said that the idea came to her after she heard continual complaints from residents about neighbors who left out food that attracted animals.
“This was just an area where there was a gap on our code of ordinances. Our code enforcement officers can’t just enforce however they please,” Collins said. “They need something in our code of ordinances [that empowers them to] go in and issue a verbal warning, a written warning or a ticket so that we can actually do some enforcement around [residents who] leave out food in such a way that it’s attracting wildlife to a hazardous degree.’”
Collins clarified that the goal of the ordinance is not to restrict residents from having food on their property, such as dog food or a bird feeder. Rather, the ordinance would allow the city to intervene if residents are storing food in a way that attracts animals.
In addition to the “Wildlife Feeding Ordinance,” the city council is currently discussing updates to the preexisting “Rodent Control Ordinance” and drafting an “Overgrowth Ordinance,” which would give the Board of Health authority to issue tickets when overgrown plants on private property block public spaces like sidewalks. While the three ordinances would collectively allow the city to legally enforce Medford’s rodent issue, Collins said that it is ultimately up to Medford residents to decrease the rodent population by avoiding actions that attract wildlife in the first place.
“Frankly, the city doesn’t have the bandwidth to be preventatively enforcing this ordinance,” Collins said. “All this does is … when somebody calls into the city and says, ‘Hey, I am having an issue with vermin that I cannot resolve on my own with my neighbor,’ then the city has permission to go in and do something about it.”
Medford’s rodent problem is not new nor specific to the city itself, Medford Board of Health Director MaryAnn O'Connor explained. She said that an increase in rodents is an issue many communities in the region are currently grappling with.
“It’s really not a rodent problem. It’s what you call a trash problem,” O'Connor said. “We need [businesses to] step up and make sure that dumpster management is improved in restaurants, … but it's really a city wide problem, and it is getting worse.”
In addition to the ordinances, O’Connor says that education is a valuable tool when it comes to solving Medford’s rodent problem. In September, Medford re-launched its “Clean Up, Seal Up” education campaign, which raises awareness about common factors that attract rodents.
In particular, Collins explained that the city seeks to educate people about plant overgrowth, which is a major contributor to the increase in rodents since many use overgrown bushes as shelter and reproduce there. O’Connor also said the city aims to educate people about some of the unintended consequences of feeding wildlife.
“Some people love to throw peanuts or bread or whatever out on the ground. They think they are doing a nice thing for the birds, but they’re basically just attracting the rodents and giving them food,” O’Connor said. “If rodents don’t have food or water, they’re not going to stick around.”
If a resident does not have the resources to clean their yard or does not know how to solve the problem themselves, O’Connor hopes they will reach out and that neighbors will help each other.
“Everybody has to pitch in. It’s not just a health department problem or city problem — it’s an everybody problem,” O’Connor said.
“We're not trying to get people in trouble out of nowhere,” Lazzaro emphasized. “We’re just trying to make sure we have a city that we can live in, that’s pleasant to be in and that is not creating an ecological imbalance, because that’s really what a rodent problem is at its core.”
