Boston City Council moves ahead on ordinances for rat-resistant trash bins, Office of Pest Control

Boston Globe

06-08-2025

'This is an issue that is critical to our city,' Flynn said in his statement before the Council. 'If this isn't a public health issue, a public safety issue, I don't really know what is.'
The council's actions
$155,000
salary in 2023
to combat its own rodent problem.
Boston announced it would tackle its rat issues with a
Now, the councilors want to take their attack plan a step further. Flynn and Councilor Erin Murphy, who both introduced the ordinances for the office and the anti-rat trash cans, warned that the pest problem goes beyond stomach-turning run-ins with rodents on the streets. A
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'Our pest control crisis poses public health concerns,' Flynn said. 'How about an office dedicated to the public health and quality of life on pest control?'
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The
Office of Pest Control would develop specific response plans for rat-heavy neighborhoods and educate residents on pest prevention, including how to properly dispose of trash and seal openings to their homes. It would 'streamline' the work currently split between the Public Works Department, the Inspectional Services Department, and the Water and Sewer Commission, according to the ordinance's text.
The rat-resistant trash bins would be introduced in neighborhoods with the highest numbers of rodent complaints, such as Allston-Brighton, Dorchester, Chinatown, South End, Roxbury, East Boston, and South Boston. The other would create same-day put-out and pickup for uncontained residential waste and containers for commercial trash.
If the rat-resistant trash can ordinance goes through, the Public Works Department (PWD) would have one year to hand out hard plastic or metal containers with closed lids to prevent rats from entering. The cans may be subsidized, discounted, or reimbursed for low-income houses and small businesses.
Councilors John FitzGerald, Julia Mejia, Henry Santana, and Benjamin Weber added their names to sponsor the trash container ordinance following Flynn and Murphy's remarks.
Murphy said rodent 'hotspots' pose an elevated health risk to working families and seniors living in dense housing and are a mental health concern for some of her constituents, who have told her they are afraid to leave their houses or use their backyards because of the rats.
'Boston's rodent problem is getting worse, not better,' she said. 'Residents are fed up.'
Boston's Rodent Action Plan
contained specific strategies for parks, sewers, public housing complexes, and construction sites, among others. It recommended rat poisons that don't pose a risk to other wildlife and a working group of city departments involved in rat mitigation efforts.
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The plan, which was composed by 'urban rodentology' expert Bobby Corrigan, also endorsed appointing a 'rat czar.'
Flynn said on Wednesday that the problem remains rooted in how residents dispose of their trash. He called in his statement to the Globe
for a 'massive public awareness' campaign and strict enforcement of trash removal policies to solve the rat problem, urging the city to provide bait boxes, compost containers, and language services to residents.
An order for a hearing to explore how the city can collect trash on the same day residents take it out is intended to fix this. Councilor Sharon Durkan, who sponsored the order, said she's tired of passing heaps of rodent-infested trash left overnight on street corners in her district, which includes Fenway and Back Bay.
'We've all walked down a block like that this summer,' Durkan added. 'We know that less food waste on the streets means less rats
.'
The ordinances for an Office of Pest Control and rat-resistant trash bins will be reviewed by the Committee of Government Operations for effectiveness. The same-day trash pickup order will move forward to the Committee on City Services and Innovation Technology.
Jade Lozada can be reached at