Sandra Rodriguez slammed on her brakes recently to avoid hitting the furry little animal crossing Ala Wai Boulevard.
As the car screeched to a halt, the Waikiki worker told her teenage daughter to look out the window to see if she had stopped before hitting someone’s pet.
"Eeew!" said her 18-year-old daughter, Kimberly. "It was a big rat. Including the tail, I think that thing was 2 feet long. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it scurry across the road and run up under a house."
Rodents like this one aren’t new to Waikiki. These rats, which are interchangeably called the Norway, brown or wharf rat, have plagued the area for decades, finding a pest paradise in sewer pipes, parks, fruit trees, aging infrastructure and dilapidated walk-ups. They also burrow under the trash cans along the Ala Wai and make nests in the cracks along the canal.
Former Mayor Jeremy Harris made rodent eradication a priority after one scurried up his leg in 1997 during a news conference in Waikiki. Two years ago Gov. Neil Abercrombie called attention to the region’s pest problem in his State of the State address. At the time, Abercrombie said, "Recent reports have highlighted that a shortage of inspectors has compromised the health and safety of the public and our land and seascapes. In Waikiki the lack of adequate vector control has resulted in a rat infestation."
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RAT REALITIES
About rattus norvegicus, the brown rat:
>> Average size: 14.10 ounces, able to reach 15.71 inches — including the tail — in length
>> Life span: Two years in the wild
>> Birthrate: Average female can give birth seven or more times per year, with about eight pups per litter. She can mate as soon as 18 hours after giving birth.
>> Dangers: In Hawaii, rats are linked to diseases such as murine typhus, leptospirosis, salmonella and lymphocytic choriomeningitis.
>> Habitat: Garbage dumps, sewers, open fields and woodlands. In cities they survive mainly on discarded human food.
Source: University of Michigan’s Animal Diversity website
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But this high-profile attention has been "all show and no go," said Waikiki Neighborhood Board Member Jeff Apaka.
In fact, the state cut the budget for its vector control program by roughly $2.1 million in 2009, when it reduced its workforce to 17 positions from 56. Only 12 positions are filled now due to budget constraints, and only four are on Oahu, where they mostly concentrate on mosquito surveillance, said Janice Okubo, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health.
"When we did have a robust vector control program, they were regularly going out to Waikiki to bait stations," Okubo said. "Now no one is going to Waikiki."
In theory the city was supposed to pick up the slack from the state cuts by servicing bait stations for trash cans along Ala Wai Boulevard. But Ross Sasamura, director of the city Department of Facility Maintenance, said the city stopped regularly servicing the stations in 2012 after thieves took the metal liners within the trash cans, probably to resell as scrap metal.
"There are presently no other rodent control measures by DFM along the Ala Wai Canal other than regular servicing of litter receptacles," Sasamura said.
Fixing Ala Wai Canal cracks, where rodents nest, is the job of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. DLNR officials declined to comment for this story.
In the next four to six months, Okubo said, the state plans to hire four vector control people for Oahu. "Some of these workers would be designated to work in Waikiki," she said.
The Health Department and the city’s facility maintenance office also have a plan to install special "animal resistant" trash cans, which would replace the current containers along the Ala Wai, Sasamura said.
Okubo said the cans, which are manufactured by Securr and look like metal mail bins, often are used in bear country to keep the animals from rooting for food.
"Our estimated budget for procuring the new receptacles is approximately $40,000," Okubo said. "We are hoping to have the first receptacles in place by summer."
The city would pour concrete slabs to create a base for the receptacles, which they would also install and maintain. Afterward the Health Department will set up rodent bait stations and traps, she said.
"The waste receptacle does not in itself reduce the rodent population; the containers prevent the feeding of the rodents, which is the first step in long-term rat control," Okubo said. "Once the main food source is eliminated, baiting with rodenticides becomes effective. The rodenticides cannot compete with ono garbage food sources."
Despite the latest plans, residents like Apaka say they are frustrated by the two-year hiatus in rat oversight in Waikiki, particularly along Ala Wai Boulevard.
"I haven’t taken my pet Chihuahua, Ponoli‘i, on evening walks along the Ala Wai for about a year now," Apaka said. "I’m tired of seeing the rats scurrying along the sidewalks. We’re had this problem for more than 20 years, but it’s worse now."
Rodriguez, the woman who almost hit the rat on her way home from work, agrees. "They need to do something now," she said. "This is a major health and safety issue."
City workers who pick up the litter along the Ala Wai receptacles once a week say that most of the cans have rodents in them or signs that they have visited.
"I put my camera up under one of the cans and got a picture of five to 10 rats," said city worker Tino Soberano. "I went home and showed my son. He was so grossed out."
The prevalence of rats and the high volume of trash in the tourist district make regular servicing of cans an important rodent control measure, said city road worker Daniel Arias. While humans create most of the trash, Arias said, rats often spread it around by eating through the black garbage bags, which they also like to steal for nesting material. "We try to stay ahead of them, but they keep coming," he said.
Although rat disease has not been a huge issue in Hawaii, Okubo said the state has seen cases of murine typhus, an illness that the fleas on rodents carry and can transmit to humans. There also have been cases of leptospirosis, a bacteria in the urine of an infected animal that can contaminate water and soil.
In addition to rodents carrying 35 known diseases, they also have been known to bite people and pets and cause severe property damage, rodent experts say.
Andy Nowinski, manager of the green organic pest control section for Diversified Exterminators, said the sewer under the Ala Wai Canal has become a "freeway" for rats, who easily move from city block to city block.
"We’ve got to seal up the cracks because that’s where most of the Norwegian rats like to hang out," said Nowinski, who has killed thousands of rats in Waikiki since he began servicing the area in the 1970s.
There’s no doubt that the lack of vector control and continued deterioration of the Ala Wai have created additional rodent problems in Waikiki, he said.
"We’ve had a big increase in rodents in Waikiki since vector control stopped. Not just for the Ala Wai, but for area schools," Nowinski said. "When the public calls the Department of Health, they tell them to call an exterminator."
While the rats prefer to burrow under Ala Wai garbage cans or hang out in holes and cracks along the canal’s embankment, Nowinski said, overcrowding can send them into residential areas. Since most Waikiki hotels have pretty vigorous pest control programs, homes typically become the target, he added.
"The rodents prefer homes to an outdoor setting because they don’t have to deal with the weather or the soil being flooded," he said. "To live happily, all they need is shelter, water and a food source, and most homes offer that."
In Waikiki, homeless encampments, especially those with hoarders, also are particularly vulnerable to infestations, he said.
"We’ve got problems at the bus stops where they have big trees and garbage cans," Nowinski said. "You see homeless people sleeping on benches or pallets because the rats are on the ground."
Thomas Carriera, a Waikiki homeless man, estimates that on any given night he encounters two to five rats around the canal.
"They come right up on the sidewalk. They’re so big, the cats and dogs run away," he said. "And, I’ll tell you what, you don’t see hardly any people going through the dumpsters around here. No way, they know those rats could jump on out. That’s traumatic."
