Rats invade Texas Health and Human Services Commission building

Large rats have overrun an office building for the state Health and Human Services Commission but pest control experts for the Texas Facilities Commission now say the situation is under control.

The rats are in the Health and Human Services Brown-Heatley administrative building.

They were discovered around September.

Traps were put out - but not just there, nearby businesses were also overrun. "We could hear them during the day, they sounded like cats or raccoons or something, upstairs,” said Chris Stockdale with European Moterworks.

The invaders found in his auto repair shop, like those at the Health and Human Services complex, were big. "The first one we got was the size of a small cat, it was huge, and we had several babies after that, they were obviously they were still breeding somewhere,” said Stockdale.

The rats may look a Norwegian breed, but are likely, Roof Rats which are more common to Texas. Stockdale quickly learned, they're not only large - they're also destructive.

“They did do some damage to the upstairs of our office area, they did chew through wires, our sign went out, the neon sign went out, we didn't know why but the wire had been chewed through. And there was a lot of feces and a lot of mess up there."

The rats also left a mess in the state office building, which is managed by the Texas Facilities Commission. It’s believed the rodents were living under a false floor, on the third floor, and scattered when renovation work started.

A statement from the commission was sent to FOX 7, it read in part:

"TFC (the commission) encountered significant rodent problems in the space underneath the flooring. TFC (the commission) initially captured quite a number of rodents from this area and the problem abated for a time."

A spokesperson with the Facilities Commission told FOX 7, over the past couple of days, they have caught fewer rats. As a result, they have entered into what’s described as a monitoring and maintenance phase.

An expert in pest control tells FOX 7, that total eradication is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

"So they are here and they've always been here, but we have seen and other companies have seen, in the last 10 years, the increase of populations on the outside,” said Brian Kelly with ABC Home and Commercial Services.

Kelly believes recent wet weather contributed to the rodent population boom.

Controlling the problem, he says, begins with finding and closing points of entry. Think small - they can be the size of a nickel. Trapping and not using poison is also recommended. "You can kill rats, but a lot times you can create bad odor problems. Can’t guarantee you can find where they go after they died,” said Kelly.

Because the abatement effort will continue at the state office building- employees have been told to keep work areas clean and uncluttered.

Officials with the Health and Human Services Commission declined to comment. As a result, it remains unclear why it was decided by agency officials to spend several thousand dollars to hire a private pest control company - and not to use the service provided by the facilities commission.