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Birdseed Lady Blamed for Rats in Glen Park
One woman's daily bird feeding in Glen Park is getting blamed for a growing rat problem, and neighbors and merchants want it stopped.
Glen Park has a bird feeding problem, and it comes down to one woman. She scatters seed on the sidewalk daily, and the birds show up in numbers, but so does everything else that eats seed off the ground.
Rats don’t need much to establish themselves. A steady food source at the same spot every day is close to ideal, and once a colony gets going nearby, it spreads to yards and building foundations fast. Neighbors and merchants on the block have started complaining, and it’s easy to see why — nobody wants rats near their storefront or stoop.
The intent behind the feeding is harmless. Feeding songbirds is a normal hobby, and plenty of people in the city do it without incident. The problem here is scale and consistency: enough seed, at the same time, in the same place, every day, is a standing invitation for rodents.
Glen Park isn’t unique here — any dense neighborhood with a reliable outdoor food source ends up with this fight eventually. Good intentions don’t make the rats go away once they’re established.