By William Tauro
I’ve been living at Assembly Row for close to over three years now and knock on wood, I haven’t ever seen a rat nor a mouse since I’ve been here. The reason why Assembly Row is so successful being rodent free is because the owners of the property spends the money and gets the job done.
Every day we’re hearing horror stories about rats running rampant across the city as some of them are even larger than cats and small dogs. Rodents are being found in our backyards, under our front porches, in our driveways and so on. The reason why is because the elected officials of Somerville aren’t doing a damn thing about it other than giving us all a song and dance.
Our elected officials should be ashamed of themselves because they have plenty of money for over-the-top unnecessary widening of our city sidewalks. They have plenty of money for rod iron railings throughout our squares. They have money for thousands of white poles that are dangerously congesting our intersections. They have plenty of money for dangerous, useless staggered, islands in the middle of our streets throughout the city. They have plenty of money for festivals. They have plenty of money for their own pay raises and personal staffing demands, but they are not spending a dime on our serious rodent problems that are causing the massive rat infestation in our city!
I myself have seven grandchildren and I would be petrified for their safety even just sitting in the yard or driveway with fear of them getting bitten by a rat or stepping on a dead rodent. I am even afraid to leave their toys, lawn furniture or even a barbecue grille in the yard if I had to with fear of the health risks and diseases that these rats carry.
With all the new multi million dollar construction projects going on all across the city that is causing most of the rodents burroughs to be disturbed and rodents searching for other places to live throughout Somerville. Why aren’t we making these developers pay their fair share on combating our rodent problems in Somerville? Why aren’t we making it mandatory for our elected officials to demand developers to organize a fund to fight our rodent problem before they’re even ever allowed to put a shovel in the ground to begin their projects?
If our elected officials in Somerville made our rodent problem a top priority and invest our taxpayer money wisely the problem would be solved!
It’s so sad that the rodent crisis got to this point and that our residents are suffering with rodents throughout the city causing a poor quality of life and a serious health hazard!
Make the calls to city hall and demand that our elected officials use their heads and tell them to think of the people of Somerville first! The technology is out there to solve this rodent problem and again like I said just look at Assembly Row because it’s working for them!