 Hoarding - approximately 1,200 rats
Tampa, FL (US)Incident Date: Thursday, Jul 31, 1997
County: Hillsborough
Local Map: available
Disposition: Not Charged
Person of Interest: Vivian C. Parson
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Neighbors complained about the smell, so police and city officials inspected the house in late August and found garbage piled several feet deep and rats everywhere inside the house. The women were ordered to leave. The city placed them in a motel. The city officials made the decision to have the house demolished.
Neighbors said Parsons had lived in the house for about 40 years and her daughter Vivian recently moved in. Vivian Bryant daughter of Vivian Parson, 76, said "They did not have to do it this way. We've already been crying and grieving about it."
Sunday night the rats went on a rampage due to hunger caused by the workers cleaning the home. The rats ran up oak trees and across shrubs in the yard.
A next door neighbor said, "The bushes were so laden with rats and they were swaying back and forth. You won't be able to describe ... living next to this -- the rats, the stench."
On Monday the house was tented, and when the red and white covering was peeled off, more than 365 dead rats littered the site. Just outside the home workers picked up 105 dead rodents and a cat. The workers estimated approximately 1,200 more dead indoors.
Rats had been living among piles of trash and tunneling through stacks of newspapers on the floor.
Workers removed bricks of garbage that had decomposed and been walked on to the point where they had solidified. Rats nested behind appliances and in mattresses.
A neighbor said, "I am thrilled to see it go. That house was not fit for anybody to live in ever again. I feel sorry for the ladies who live there."
A backhoe was used on Wednesday to raze the house. A property rights advocate said the demolition happened so quickly that due process was compromised.
The women had asked the city for more time to clean up the house, but officials said that never happened and they decided to take action last week.
After the demolition, one of the women said, "Had we known they were going to tent the house I would have been over here to pick up every rat by myself so there would not be any more rat problems."
The city said it had to step up when the situation encroached on the health and safety of neighbors.
Bryant pleaded for them not to kill the rats because her mother was feeding them. "They were very domesticated rats. They had no fear of humans."
The exterminator said, "They never been out of the house. They weren't the least bit shy from humans, either. They are used to eating out of a dish or bag."
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