WORCESTER, Mass. - The Worcester City Council is considering new strategies to help residents and business owners deal with rat infestations, and local exterminators claim they’re responding to more rodent situations than usual.

Chris Ford, owner of Ford’s Hometown Services on Grove Street, said calls have doubled in recent months.

“In 2022, we had 86 rat calls, and in 2023, we had 169,” Ford said.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, City Councilor Donna Colorio asked the city’s Inspectional Services Department to create a comprehensive plan to eradicate rats in the city.

It’s not the first time Worcester has tackled the issue. During the meeting, Colorio referenced previous attempts which included quicker trash pickups and more thorough inspections of restaurants.

“My question to the chair and to the city manager is, can we do better?” Colorio said. “It seems like every time I turn around, people are saying they’ve never had rats in their neighborhood, now they have rats.”

In a statement, Inspectional Services Commissioner Christopher Spencer said the city has received approximately 90 complaints of rats since July 2023, which doesn’t indicate "any appreciable uptick."

“ISD is also working on better mapping abilities that will provide more information such as the severity of the issues, the dates of occurrence, and any follow-ups,” Spencer said. “This will allow us to get a better sense of the issues over time and allow us to provide greater resources to help curb the rat activity and population and ensure that educational material is distributed to the areas where activities are occurring.”

One of the requests Colorio also had was the addition of an online reporting tool to report any rat sightings.

Ford said for home and business owners, time is of the essence when dealing with a rat infestation.

“They can have six to 12 litters each time, and then gestation period is roughly around 21 days,” Ford said. “So two rats in a single year can turn into 1,250 rats.”

Ford said winter usually puts more stress on the population and slows reproduction, but with the past few winters being more mild, it’s been a different story. He also believes ongoing construction in the city has pushed rats away from those areas and into homes and businesses.

“A lot of the three-deckers in Worcester can be over 100 years old, and they have fieldstone foundations,” Ford said. “And a rat only needs a hole the size of a quarter to get through. We're just not seeing a lot of landlords in the city doing proper care on their properties the way they really should be.”

Ford said you should secure food and water supplies, and avoid relying solely on traps to keep those rats away.

“There’s a term called neophobia that refers to rats, and that is basically the fear of unfamiliar things,” Ford said. “So if you put traps and things out there, they will they will stay away from it for at least three weeks until they can get used to it.”