Rats Part Of Growing Pains For Fresh Food Program At San Francisco Schools

The San Francisco School District is serving more and more "fresh food" to students.

But with extra waste and lack of enough refrigerators, it seems rodents are attracted.

Hmmm.

Rats Part Of Growing Pains For Fresh Food Program At San Francisco Schools

San Francisco Unified School District serves more fresh food and a greater number of meals to their students since switching food providers last year, but the fresh-food program has led to some infrastructure challenges of its own including one problem with four legs and a very bad reputation for carrying disease: rats.

a reply to: xuenchen

lol wut?
Why not just create a school compost heap.

And use some of the school yard to place the compost in and grow some fruit trees or something overtop it?

That way if kids are hungry and can't afford lunch they can eat from the trees But isn't san fransico in cali where it never rains?

originally posted by: AnuTyr
a reply to: xuenchen

lol wut?
Why not just create a school compost heap.

And use some of the school yard to place the compost in and grow some fruit trees or something overtop it?

That way if kids are hungry and can't afford lunch they can eat from the trees

But isn't san fransico in cali where it never rains?

Rats love nothing more than a compost pile to live in......that is a fact.
forums2.gardenweb.com...

And if you read through the thread they are attracted to veggies especially.
We have two bins in our yard but no raw pile and so we don't have a problem as far as we know.

Once you get a rat infestation your in big trouble as we all know.

Regards. Iwinder

I suppose they could invest in a few cats, it works well for me around here.

Other options would be securing the produce better (like suspended containers), using a ref for veggies that spoil/ripen fast, using bucket traps with water on the bottom to drown them.. All of which I do, but there will always be rats here.

I prefer not to use chemicals or poisons on them because you don't know what will eat the poisoned carcass once it dies.

Rats a fresh food problem? Serve them with onions, an olive oil base, and garnish. Problem solved!

a reply to: Aleister

I know people who have done that here, but they are rats that live in the wilderness away from pollutants.

I would have a problem with eating a rat living in and around civilization with access to who knows what.