Crazy things from this crazy little town

Lake in the Hills has rats . . . or not

Jeff Long, Tribune staff reporter - CHICAGO TRIBUNE

It may take an autopsy of sorts on a critter torn to bits by dogs to determine whether urban vermin or opossums are responsible for making a Lake in the Hills neighborhood jumpy.

Allegations of rat sightings have caused residents to put out traps. "Everyone's got mothballs lying around. They've got bleach in their garbage cans," said Tami Carriveau. "Anything to deter them."

Carriveau has collected 70 signatures on a petition asking the village to get rid of the creatures that have been spotted in the neighborhood along Oakleaf Road.

Opossums are one thing, the residents said. "But you know the stigma that comes with a rat: filth, dirt, disease," Carriveau said. "Scary."

Carriveau's mother, who lives in the neighborhood, discovered what she took to be a rat in her garage in early August.

"She heard something fall in her garage," Carriveau said. "It triggered her electronic doorbell. Maybe something fell and set it off, but her doorbell rang. She turned on the light and saw a rat--a big black one."

Neighbors say rats are attracted to retention ponds and the restaurants nearby with trash bins in the back. They complain that the village isn't paying serious attention to the problem.

But officials aren't convinced that rats are causing the uproar.

"I've lived in rural areas all my life," said Patrick Ryan, the village's public works director. "For me, it's very easy to identify an opossum from a rat. It's very rare to see a rat this far out. I think people are just hyper-vigilant about their property."

Ryan said village workers and an exterminator hired by the village have not found signs of rats.

Ed Fuller, owner of Fox Valley Exterminating, has set traps.

"You guys have rats and drive-by shootings," he said of Chicago residents. "We have raccoons.

"The two I saw pictures of were definitely opossums. Then I got a call to pick up a rat, but it was an opossum. Then McHenry County Animal Control got a call about a rat, but it was a squirrel."

Leslie Paulish said she knows what she saw.

"It was definitely a rat," said Paulish, who grew up in Franklin Park and has lived in Lake in the Hills for four years. She spotted the varmint running along the top of the fence in her back yard.

"It was black," Paulish said. "Opossums are usually lighter gray, have a longer snout and the tail is different. I know the difference between a rat and an opossum."

Only bits of a carcass, or carcasses, are left to settle the issue. An "autopsy" is pending.

"An animal had dug them up," Ryan said. "All we had left were the paws. It gets a bit strange, but they can do an identification on that."

Fuller said he is looking for someone at a university to identify with certainty what kind of creature it was.

If it turns out to be an opossum, as Fuller suspects, he said he will catch them if residents insist.

"But usually we don't unless they get in your house," he said. "If they're just outside running around, they don't bother anybody."