'I Caught Approximately 30 Rats In 2 Days': Brighton Heights Residents Battle Rat Problems

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The homes on McClure Avenue in Brighton Heights have been here for more than a century, and lately, they've been battling an age-old problem: rats.

By now, Jack O'Brien is too familiar with the problem.

"I'd say in the last three months, I've caught about four or five of them in my place, and I don't leave nothing out," he said.

O'Brien's infiltrators have branched out from the vacant house two doors up the street. He's seen them out night and day.

"Oh yeah, they are out there all the time it seems like now," he said.

George Puhac has been setting a trap several times a day.

"I caught approximately 30 rats in two days, in two days. 30, 30!"

To say George is upset about the rats would be an understatement.

He's on a mission to win back his neighborhood.

"I put six bags of rat poison down in the last two months," O'Brien said.

And yet, they still keep on coming.

Day and night, Puhac says he can see them through the kitchen window.

"What I see: eight or ten at a time running around there," Puhac said.

Next door, the rats have been seen coming and going from the basement of a home. After one was trapped and killed, foam was put in the cracks to keep others out.

The neighbors say their calls to the Pittsburgh Mayor's Hotline have netted promises of poisoning efforts to come.

But Puhac says it won't be soon.

"Six to eight weeks for them to come out and put poison down," Puhac said.

Since early June, the home has been owned by MidFirst Bank in Oklahoma City. A call to the bank today has gone without a response.

Pittsburgh Animal Control and Building Inspection Division have not responded to KDKA's inquiries about the home.

The Allegheny County Health Department says it will look into the situation. The health department process involves several steps to compel the homeowner to fix the problem.