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A group of public housing residents complained to the City Council Tuesday of a rat infestation they said is threatening their children and keeping them up at night. 

“It’s appalling that this is going on,” Mayor Shirley Dean responded and asked City Manager Weldon Rucker what he could do to remedy the situation. 

The city had already been notified of the rat infestation, Rucker said, and had immediately dispatched the Environmental Health Division to assess the situation in the area of the 11 units of public housing on Ward Street at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

“We’re on top of the problem as we speak,” Rucker said Tuesday. 

Some of the residents who attended the council meeting carried handwritten signs, including one that read: “Public housing residents on Ward Street deserve to live in a community that is not infested with rats.” 

Four residents addressed the council during the public comment portion of the meeting. 

“I’m afraid and there are other single mothers with children who are afraid, too,” said tearful resident Lynetta Taylor, who shares a unit with three of her children and her one-year-old grandson. “Something has to be done before a child or an adult is injured.” 

Taylor added that she often stays up late into the night making sure her children are not bothered by the rats. 

Only one resident, Rose Flippin, who attended the meeting with her 3-year-old daughter, said she has seen evidence of rats inside her unit. Other residents said they have heard rats in the walls or have seen them in their backyards. “I can hardly sleep at night because I can hear the rats scratching and scurrying around,” Flippin said. 

Arrietta Chakos, the city manager’s chief of staff, said on Thursday the problem is primarily the result of two conditions, improperly contained debris and refuse in front and back of the housing units and overgrown grass and weeds on Berkeley Unified School District property to the north and east of the housing. 

The Berkeley Alternative High School and the King Early Childhood Development Center are adjacent to the Ward Street housing. 

Alex Schnieder, director of the Environmental Health Division, said those conditions have led to a “significant” rat problem in the vicinity of the townhouse-styled homes. “Our inspectors saw rats in the area during daylight,” he said. “That’s a sign of a significant problem because rats are usually night creatures.” 

Chakos said the city has put together an action plan that includes a coordinated effort with the school district to clean up debris and keep the school district’s lawns trimmed and weeded.  

Simultaneously Western Exterminator, a private company that contracts with the city, will strategically deploy rodent poison contained in food around the units and on the school district property. Chakos said rats that ingest the poison will usually die within 48 hours. 

“We have to make sure no tenants are hurt, so we are being rather assertive with the rodent extermination,” Chakos said. 

In addition, all of the units will be inspected to make sure any possible openings accessible by rodents are sealed.  

To avoid future problems, residents will be provided with additional containers for storing garbage and recycling until it can be hauled away, Chakos said. 

Taylor said the city has taken quick action on the rat problem and that she was pleased the city manager called her personally and asked her to call him if she felt the problem wasn’t being addressed. 

But Taylor said she has reported other maintenance problems in her unit to the Berkeley Housing Authority and it has sometimes taken months for a response. 

“I had a leak in my kitchen sink that was flooding the floor to the point of where we put a blanket on the floor and had to wring it out every morning,” she said. “I called the Housing Authority at least 11 times before I could get them to do anything.” 

Interim Housing Director Stephen Barton said a backlog of repair work was created because the maintenance company, hired by the city to take care of BHA housing, was irresponsible and that a new company was hired within the last two months. “At last the log jam is breaking up and we’re starting to get to some of these problems,” he said.