RATS!

URBAN LIFE Although rats carried the diseases that killed elephants and pandas at the Dallas Zoo, local rodents aren’t likely to start a wave of bubonic plague. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem. “Our rat population is pretty enormous,” says RON DAWSON JR., vice president of Ron Dawson Pest Control. “The [danger of] plague is not totally eliminated, given a high population and little precaution.”

In Dallas, there are two main types of rats: roof rats and Norway rats. Roof rats usually show up north of Loop 12, says Dawson, past president of the Dallas Pest Control Association. The roof rat is the grayer, squirrellike, vegetarian rodent. Within the Loop, though, you’re more likely to encounter the Norway rat-a big, black, burrowing, meat-eater rat. The Norways, Dawson says, carry the diseased fleas that could cause the plague.

Much of the time, prevention-keeping rats out of the woodpile, etc.-is enough to ward off the creatures. But in some areaslike lower Highland Park, because of its foliage, and lower McKin-ney, because of the water treatment plant-residents are stuck with the rodents. And once they get in, it’s tough to get ’em out, which is why Dawson’s pest control business-one of over 300 in Dallas-gets between 10 and 20 calls a day. “I won’t say which client, but we pulled 38 of them [Norway rats] out of one office building.”