The rodenticide fight

Updated September 21, 2026

What's happening

The Legislative Matters Committee recommended both of Somerville's anticoagulant-rodenticide measures 5-0 on September 15, and they go to the full City Council next, whose next regular meeting is September 24 (Sept 15 digest). One, item 26-1310, is an ordinance banning the poisons on city-owned property and in city-sponsored pest control. The other, item 26-1257, is a home-rule petition asking Beacon Hill for the authority to regulate them on private property citywide, which the state currently keeps for itself. Both were referred on August 27 at a meeting where councilor after councilor said the city's rat strategy is not working.

The story

The immediate ordinance, item 26-1310, would amend Chapter 6 of the Code of Ordinances to prohibit anticoagulant rodenticides on city-owned property. Ward 7 Councilor Emily Hardt and At-large Councilor Jonathan Link filed it, with At-large Councilor Will Mbah and Ward 4 Councilor Jesse Clingan signing on. The poisons stop blood from clotting; rats eat them, and the predators and scavengers that eat the rats are poisoned in turn. Morgan Pinney of Save Somerville Wildlife, a sponsored speaker at the August 27 meeting, recalled a bald eagle known as MK that died of rodenticide poisoning in 2023; a mural by 11 Somerville High School students honoring the bird was revealed on Mystic Avenue on August 22.

That wildlife case runs straight into Somerville's very visible rat problem. "A lot of people are concerned about banning rodenticides given that we have such a massive problem with rats in the city," Hardt said — and her answer is that the poison is not controlling the population anyway. "It doesn't make sense to continue down a path that we know is not working," Link said, arguing that the owls that hunt rats are being poisoned instead; Pinney said a single owl can eat more than 1,000 rats a year. Clingan said the poisons do "more harm than good" and pointed to the city's first DeRATification Week in late April. At-large Councilor Ben Wheeler said "we are not doing enough as a city," naming absentee landlords and commercial dumpsters as rat hotspots. The sponsors' alternative is unglamorous: report sightings to 311, and cut off food and water, pet waste and windfall fruit.

The second track is broader and slower. Immediately after that discussion, Mayor Jake Wilson asked the Council to approve a home-rule petition (item 26-1257) that would ban first- and second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides — FGARs and SGARs — on private property as well. His argument is regional: joining the other Massachusetts communities that regulate the poisons puts pressure on the state. "Hopefully this moves the state to ban them," Wilson said. Local approval only sends the request to the Legislature; Beacon Hill and the governor would still have to enact it before Somerville could write a citywide rule, and the city's other home-rule petitions have mostly sat there — see Somerville's bills on Beacon Hill.

Sept 15: the city already stopped using them

Director of Public Health Colin Zeigler told the committee why the two tracks exist: the state licenses pest-control technicians and regulates pesticides, so Somerville cannot on its own ban first- or second-generation anticoagulants (FGARs and SGARs) that private contractors use. The ordinance codifies what is already city practice on city property; the petition asks for the power to reach everyone else. The gap Ward 2 Councilor JT Scott called out is that building, demolition and foundation permits require pest control but the city cannot dictate which products the contractor uses. He called the package "a laudatory step."

The city's own program quietly changed two years ago. In early 2024 the residential rodent-assistance program switched from second-generation "all weather blocks" to a vitamin D concentrate bait with far lower risk to the animals that eat poisoned rats; the program was extended from three weeks to eight, and properties with severe infestations can get dry-ice carbon monoxide treatment. Residents see the same bait boxes; only the contents changed. Ward 3 Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen anticipated the headline — "Somerville is trying to ban rat poison" — and asked how essential the products are; Zeigler said their efficiency is outweighed by secondary poisoning of raptors, scavengers and coyotes. "Our original rat czar supports this," Ewen-Campen said, and the current approach "is not working."

The rat problem itself has not gone anywhere. On September 8 the joint school buildings committee accepted DPW's rodent remediation at the West Somerville Neighborhood School, which School Committee member Leiran Biton said had been among the worst rodent problems in the city in the spring; he warned that the school's ongoing roof work could draw rats out again (Sept 8 digest). See School buildings and the schools' other fights.

What's next

September 24, 2026 — the next regular Council meeting, the first chance for the full Council to act on the committee's 5-0 recommendations; no agenda was posted on Legistar as of September 21. The ordinance the Council can ordain by itself; the home-rule petition must clear the Council and then the Legislature before any private-property rule can follow. See Somerville's bills on Beacon Hill and the committee and board docket.
The central policy test is whether Somerville can move away from these poisons without weakening its response to serious infestations.