CITY OF FLOWERS OVERCOMES SERIOUS RAT THREAT
The city of Rombas in the Moselle valley just to the north of Metz has overcome serious rat problems in the past year while dramatically cutting the amount of rodenticide used through a fresh, behaviour-led control programme.
Despite comprehensive municipality-wide sewer baiting, rodent complaints had been growing steadily over recent years across Rombas, with sewer rats even reported in broad daylight near food shops in many cases. The problems were clearly being made worse by the ready availability of food from garden bird feeding, and not helped by the extensive areas of woodland close to the city.
Particularly conscious of the quality of its environment and its reputation as the City of Flowers, the 11,000-strong community which plants fully 85,000 flowers across 25 acres each year took determined action to address the problem. Last summer, the Mairie called in a team of experts comprising local pest control specialist, Augias, European public health distributor, Edialux and world-leading rodenticide manufacturer, Sorex International.
"Our joint investigations revealed the city's existing rat control programme was quite extensive," reports Jérôme Scharff of Edialux. "No less than 700 manholes were being lifted and treated with extruded 100g difenacoum blocks three times a year. This level of baiting should have been more than sufficient to prevent problems.
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