North Beach rats may be result of Central Subway work

A rat trap sits under a bush at Washington Square Park, near subway construction work. A rat trap sits under a bush at Washington Square Park, near subway construction work. Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close North Beach rats may be result of Central Subway work 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

First, they came for the South of Market neighborhood - skittering and squeaking rats, believed to have been dislodged by construction on the Central Subway system in San Francisco.

Now, as construction moves farther north, North Beach residents are reporting similar vermin sightings around the bushes of Washington Square Park, near where excavation work at the Pagoda Theater has just been completed.

" 'Teeming' is the word that came to my mind," said Richard Levine, who has lived about two blocks from the park for about 35 years. "They were small rats, in groups of two, three, four, visible and running under and around the bushes on the border of the park on the Union Street side."

John Murnin, a North Beach resident for 10 years, said he usually spots the rodents in the dark early hours before dawn, when he's waiting to catch a bus at Union Street and Columbus Avenue.

But he said that on one particularly bad day, when the park was more crowded, he witnessed "a pack of 25 or 30, just roaming around together, like in platoon formation."

"It was like a sci-fi movie," he said. "I've never seen anything like it. Tourists were running out of the park, screaming."

Link to construction?

Like their South of Market counterparts, many North Beach residents say they think the influx of rats came around the same time the Central Subway system construction reached their neighborhood. Rats have always been a fact of life in an urban neighborhood, they said, but not like this.

"There have always been rats, at least occasionally in the park," Levine said. "I have a dog that likes to 'tree' them by chasing them and forcing them to climb the trees. But these rats are unperturbed. They seemed to be less concerned about being seen or banged into than rats generally are. They weren't scurrying. They were just hanging out."

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency officials say that, just like when construction started near Fourth and Bryant streets, they set up an abatement program around the site with the help of the Department of Public Health. Agency spokeswoman Kristen Holland said there's a possibility this recent scourge of rats could be coming from something other than construction.

"Typically rodents are more active at the start of construction, rather than at the completion of construction," she said. "We received no complaints of rats at the beginning of construction, nor has the project received any recently.

"While at this stage it's unclear what activity at the project site would cause rodents to be moving in the area, we are certainly prepared to work with the community to identify the cause and help develop a solution," Holland said.

But Department of Public Health officials said the cause is most likely the construction - not much else has changed in the neighborhood to have forced this sudden appearance of bald-tailed critters. And Murnin said he's called about 15 city agencies, including the mayor's office, to try to get someone to deal with the rats.

City's efforts

Richard Lee, the Department of Public Health's director of environmental health, said they've received two complaints so far about the rats and have since sent in a city pest control contractor to treat and bait the area for the critters.

"They noticed rat burrows at or near the park," Lee said.

He also noted that the infestation could be exacerbated because some people choose to feed what the late Chronicle columnist Herb Caen used to call "winged rats" - pigeons. Birdseed and food tend to attract vermin, and he recommended that people not put birdseed in the area, at least until the rat problem has diminished.

Lee also asked the public to call 311 if they spot rats.

Levine said the park's gardeners have been doing "a terrific job" in cleaning known rat-gathering areas and sweeping out discarded food from the park.

"The neighborhood appreciates it, but they're still out there and there are significantly more of them," he said. "Rats have always lived beneath us in this city. But I don't want them around where I'm eating, and I don't want them around where little kids are playing. "

What's not working Issue: North Beach residents say there's been an influx of rats swarming around Washington Square Park, similar to what neighbors in the South of Market neighborhood experienced with the start of the Central Subway construction. What's been done: San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency officials say they have a rodent abatement program in place around the construction site, which includes trapping rats and clearing out their nests. The Department of Public Health says it has sent out a city pest control contractor to bait and treat the area. Who's responsible: Betty Chau, SFMTA Central Subway Outreach, betty.chau@sfmta.com