King rat

The bright side of upscale Las Vegas' rat problem: At least they're healthy

By Bob Shemeligian

Rats is clever. Let me tell you that. If you want to catch em, you got to know em...

You know what they do? They watch you! All the time you're goin round preparing to catch em. They're sitting quietly in dark places watching you.

--Roald Dahl, The Ratcatcher

At Anthem, homes prices are skyrocketing, demand for space is at a premium and the population is growing quickly. Many residents have two legs. But countless others have four.

"Everybody here has rats," says Ken Rosenberg, a resident of Sun City Anthem, the upscale Henderson development's age-restricted community. "They run up and down the steps of the fountains at my neighbor's house. We had one in our garage a few days ago. He tore up the Venetian blinds trying to get out."

Rosenberg, a retired Foreign Service officer, says he is not particularly upset by the presence of rats. "I've lived in places [throughout the world] where you would see thousands of them running around. It's not like that here."

But other Anthem residents are not so understanding.

"I'm pissed," says one resident who suffers from rodent-phobia. "No one told me there were rats here when I bought my house. Now it's either sell my house or marry an exterminator."

The good news for Anthem residents is the community's rats are healthy and apparently not carrying any diseases.

"Our concern is dealing with any type of public health issue, and we've been testing and looking to see if there are any diseases in the rats, and at this point we've found none," says Dave Tonelli, spokesman for the Clark County Health District.

Just how healthy and robust are these rats at Anthem?

"They're huge," says Michaele Ross, a resident of Sun City Anthem since February. "The other night I was on my patio and one of them zoomed under the sofa. It was humongous. Later, the exterminator said he would set traps with peanut butter or bacon, and I told him, `Forget the bacon. You better set them with rump roasts!'"

The area of the valley where Anthem is located is home to a large colony of roof rats, also known as Old World rats, which arrived in North America centuries ago on ships and have been in Southern Nevada for more than 10 years. Experts believe the rodents stowed away on palm tree shipments to local resorts and real estate developments.

"They come here in the palm trees," says Monica Caruso, spokeswoman for the Southern Nevada Home Builders Association. "I would think there should at least be some discussion about checking the trees before you truck them in."

Local exterminators say roof rats thrive in Southern Nevada because of the area's tropical climate, abundance of food--especially fruit trees--and abundance of golf courses.

"They love the foliage, the availability of food and the water sources," says Cliff Adele of Phoenix Pest and Termite Control, who explains that Anthem is just one of several local developments with rat problems. Others include the Scotch 80s, McNeil Estates and Spanish Trail.

"They've settled in very nicely and if we don't start taking care of the problem now, we're going to have real problems with rats further down the line," Adele says. "You have to remember a female rat is fertile at the age of three months and she can have a litter of nine babies. Do the math."

One who agrees is Jeff Burns, owner of Preventive Pest Control. "There really are no natural predators out here," Burns says. "You don't see any eagles or hawks flying around, do you?"

In recent years, Burns has trapped many roof rats in affluent real estate communities throughout Las Vegas--including Green Valley and The Hills South Village near the Tournament Players Club in Summerlin.

"The good news is they're pretty healthy," Burns says. "They don't carry a whole lot of diseases."

Indeed, Southern Nevada's roof rats are among the world's healthiest rodents. The Clark County Health District last year launched its Urban Rodent Surveillance Project to test local rats for disease. Tonelli said the project was a "baseline" effort and roughly 45 rats from various developments in Southern Nevada were tested.

"If a rat is carrying a disease, such as bubonic plague or typhus as examples, this obviously would be a public health concern," says Dave Tonelli, a health district spokesman. "But we have found no diseases in any of the rats we've tested." Tonelli says additional studies, including some population density surveys, are in the works, and that the parts of the Summerlin area, where some rats have been trapped, will be studied in greater detail.

Adele says it won't take a great deal of study to determine Southern Nevada's roof rats are eating well. "The largest rat I've caught was about 23 inches in length and weighed five pounds," Adele says. "That was a healthy, fat rat."

"I understand some of these rats are bigger than some of the pet dogs in this community," Caruso says. "I suppose now is the time for a boom in pit bulls."

Experts note that rats are more likely to carry diseases in overpopulated areas where food for the small mammals is scarce and they're forced to scavenge in unsanitary places such as sewer lines or waste dumps.

"What with all the fruit trees and people who leave their garage doors open and pet food outside the back door, there's plenty of food for rats here," Adele says. "With all our pomegranate and apricot trees, and the fruit falling to the ground and rotting--that's like heaven to these rats."

Still, assurances that rats in exclusive communities are healthy provide little comfort to residents who have paid several hundred thousand dollars for their homes.

"I've yet to find a wife who is cool with the idea of healthy rats running around her home," Burns says. "One of my customers who lives in a very expensive house in Summerlin told me, 'If I see any more rats I'm going to get myself a track shack.'"

Healthy or not, the presence of rats certainly presents at least a public relations problem to developers of upscale communities. After all, how many members of the animal kingdom can boast of spreading the Black Plague, which wiped out 25 million people--a third of Europe--in the 14th century? Today, there are antibiotics that readily cure bubonic plague, but there is no panacea for the stigma still carried by rats.

"Let's face it, rats have a terrible reputation. Even though they play a big part in the food chain, many people are terrified of them," says Barbara Greenberg, who recently purchased a home at Sun City Anthem.

Greenberg says she doesn't have a problem with the idea of one day seeing a rat. Still, she says she wishes she would have known about the problems when she was negotiating to buy her home several months ago.

"Del Webb prides itself on its reputation, and it was very tough negotiating with them--trying to get extra things done," Greenberg says. "I guess I can't blame them for not saying anything about the rats. If I were selling home, I wouldn't mention them either."

Actually, representatives of Del Webb Corp., a division of Pulte Homes, say they have discussed the rat problem around some sections of Sun City Anthem with concerned residents.

"We've seen some rodents around the perimeter of the community, and whenever we spot one, we call an exterminator who in turn sets traps to control the problem," says Allison Copening, director of public affairs for Pulte Homes/Del Webb.

Because Anthem has been carved out of raw desert, Copening explains, it's not entirely unexpected that there will be problems with small animals that made their homes in the land before it was disturbed by bulldozers.

"Part of the beauty of living at Anthem is that the area is surrounded by natural desert, and animal life exists in the desert," Copening says. "Apparently they come into the community looking for water and the golf course looks attractive to them."

Copening says Del Webb has hired landscape architects and exterminators to deal with the problem, and has offered advice to several homeowners on how to deal with unwanted four-legged visitors. "We're proactive in making sure we keep this under control," Copening says.

Another who is proactive is Ross, the Sun City Anthem grandmother who has her own method of dealing with rats. "I have a small gun and it's loaded, and if I see one of those things trying to get in through a screen or springing from the roof, he's going to be in for a big surprise."