"Roach Motel" at 3119 4th Street North

Photo by John Hoff

First the good news: a crew of some kind cleaned up the "landfill starter kit" behind 3119 4th Street North...

Now the bad news: according to the next door neighbor "Patty Cake," the crew found both live and dead rats as well as cockroaches in the garbage piles. The refuse was there for a while in the open, weedy ground instead of a nice dumpster container, (the purpose of which is to keep vermin OUT until dedicated dumpster divers can get the loot) so I can understand the live roaches and rats getting into the pile.

But it is the the DEAD rats which tell the tale: the building must be infested with vermin.

"Patty Cake" will be talking to the usual city officials about this. There was a rumor of demolition in 37 days (yes, an odd number) but the new rumor is things will take much longer than that. Well, if it's full of vermin...maybe we can fast track it. I mean, cheaper to knock the building down a little sooner--since it's going to be knocked down anyway--then to fumigate a building which is going to be demolished, right?

Haul the rats and roaches away to the landfill with the rubble, I say. They will like it there. Everybody wins.

I told Patty Cake that I'd make blogging about this matter a priority, to get the word out about the infestation. I can't help but wonder what is up inside of 3101 6th Street, the OTHER "Apartment Complex of Anarchy." Things weren't much better in that building, and in some ways worse because pipes were ripped out. It could be full of vermin, as well.

I went behind 3119 4th Street and took this picture. The crew did a really good job cleaning. I didn't see much left behind except a plastic container of nutmeg and part of a CD. It's weird there would be a container of nutmeg, because when I visited the garbage pile with Jake and Gabe and their video camera, I also found a full container of nutmeg, which I poured out so it would go back to the earth.

So it was strange to find--of all the crazy things--another container of nutmeg. But I decided as far as omens go, it was positive.