Aw, Rats! They’re Everywhere in Kansas City!

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Michael Swoyer is the guy in Kansas City, Mo., you call when you see a rat. Swoyer said for years the number of rat complaints have remained pretty steady.

“About 1,200 complaints per year,” he said.

He explained they’re mostly in the older part of the city where storm and sanitary sewers are combined. Swoyer said rats are tough to get rid of for several reasons.  They breed quickly and they’re picky eaters.

“In big rat colonies, the small weak rats, they’ll let them eat first on new things, and the other rats will watch them and see what happens,” Swoyer said.

Swoyer explained the rat population needs to be controlled because they chew through nearly everything.

“Their teeth are harder than iron, and they can bite with the force of 3.5 tons per square inch up to six times a second,” he said.

Plus they like our food.

“Rats and mice are credited with either eating or spoiling up to one-third of all the food that’s produced in the world every year,” Swoyer said.

And they carry a number of diseases. So the question was raised by Pitch Magazine — what happens when Kansas City’s sewer system is over-hauled?

Jennifer Kincaid with the water department said they’re not concerned, in fact most pipes won’t be dug up.

“Now, certainly, in some cases we will have to dig in and remove some of those pipes, but when that happens, we don’t think we’ll see a big rat infestation,” she said.

How can you tell between a rat and a mouse? Swoyer explained that a rat’s droppings are about the size of a jelly bean, while a mouse’s droppings are about the size of a grain of rice.

If you have a rat problem that you need solved, you can call Michael Swoyer at 816-513-6010. Getting rid of rats in Kansas City is free for residents.