ST. GEORGE, Utah — A St. George neighborhood is dealing with something that residents never had to deal with until maybe four or five years ago.
Rats.
Debi Roth’s horror story began, of all days, last Halloween in her attic.
"Halloween day, I was putting decorations up, and I got in my storage area on the other side of the house and picked up a box, and the bottom broke out, and there was a rat nest in it with rat poop and stuff," Roth explained.
Working as a landscaper, Roth has seen one mouse in 13 years, but no rats. Mice are not unusual in St. George, although rats were rare up until 2021. But now?
"It's been the past three, four years that our numbers have skyrocketed," said Danny Shakespear with Shakespeare Pest Control. "Pack rats, roof rats, just skyrocketed. Our rat control calls have increased by 40 percent, year over year, the past three years."
Shakespeare said the rats are another side effect of the area’s growth, as the rodents are hitching rides when people move to the area. But he believes that the main culprits are chicken coops.
As egg prices went up, it became a local trend to keep backyard chickens. Rats followed, eating the excess feed, and a new food chain started that boosted the rat population. Shakespeare explained that just two rats can produce up to 5,000 pups a year.
And that food chain goes beyond rats to their predator.
"We'll normally get three to four snake calls in a year. We've had over 20 just this month," added Shakespeare.
The roof rats ate through the HVAC and water pipes, causing flooding in Roth's home in November. After that was cleaned up, the rats returned last month, and the home flooded again, causing damages totaling $85,000.
Roth hasn’t been able to stay at her home for 5 months, and it took a while for her HOA to even believe her. Rats in St. George?
"My HOA didn't take me serious on this at first," she said. "They are now because now they're seeing what this has caused."
