Chicago, like many other cities, is perennially confronting a rat problem – only one that is even worse than most. In fact, for ten years in a row, it has been rated America’s Rattiest City by the 125-year-old pest control company, Orkin. 

The city has been fighting back by dealing with its rats one case at a time, when its Department of Streets and Sanitation’s Bureau of Rodent Control (BORC) is alerted through a 311 call.

Clearly that hasn’t been working, based on a July 28 rat abatement audit by the Chicago Office of Inspector General, which investigated “whether BORC’s approach to addressing the harms of rat infestation aligns with the principles of Integrated Pest Management, a pest control framework endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Illinois Department of Public Health.”

The simple answer was no.

As the audit explained, “BORC’s primary goal was to poison rats in response to complaints rather than addressing the root causes of rat infestations while using poison as a last resort. Though other City agencies provide services that could address root causes, these services were not incorporated into BORC’s program or into a unified strategy for rodent control. Finally, BORC did not evaluate or report on the effectiveness of its intervention efforts, which limited its ability to determine whether its efforts are creating long-term improvement.”

Among the recommendations from the inspector general was to use a “surveying approach to collect and monitor data on root causes that support rat activity across the city, potentially including, for example, garbage and alley conditions, active rat signs such as burrow holes, vacant lots, green space, restaurant inspection violations, building violations, and other information that BORC deems relevant.”

The audit seems to have had impact and Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation is expanding its efforts to coordinate with other city agencies. Its Bureau of Rat Control, has agreed to work with “other City departments to provide . . . training for agencies involved in housing, public health, infrastructure, recreation, and related services, contingent on the participation of those agencies.”

To paraphrase the line that Hillary Clinton popularized that “it takes a village to raise a child,” the audit’s underlying message is that it takes a government working together to kill many rats.

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