(WBIR-KNOXVILLE) Shops and restaurants along the Cumberland Avenue strip are enduring construction obstacles this year, but now the work is exposing another challenge: rodents.
"Oh, there's big ones, small ones, short, long, white, black," HeadQuarters Manager Zachary Puca said. "They're all over the place. All over."
Headquarters Skateshop is right next to a city dumpster, primarily being used by restaurants and construction workers.
Puca said rats filling those dumpsters and surrounding parking lots have been damaging to business.
"It's also scaring a lot of customers, patrons that walk back through the alley, definitely," he said.
Puca and other business owners in Fort Sanders and along the Cumberland Avenue strip near the University of Tennessee campus said the problem started when more construction started behind their shops.
"They dug out quite a big hole behind me," Fort Sanders Yacht Club and Monster Pizza owner Dillon Luttrell said. "Once that had happened, it seemed like there was no other place for the vermin to go."
He said city officials moved some problematic dumpsters in an attempt to help a few months back, but that action wasn't enough to stop the rats.
"They absolutely helped us out with this, but unfortunately, it got to a point where it kind of snowballed before they came in and helped us out," Luttrell said. "We basically had so many rats in the back alley way and the parking lot and the dumpsters that couldn't be removed because the alley way was so shortened because of the construction and blocked."
Luttrell said the city needs to invest in its own pest control efforts.
"I've put enough money into keeping them out of the back parking lot on my own and so (have) the other establishments around here that really feel like the problem is the fact that these things don't have anywhere to go," he said.
Will Bullard with Dayton's Pest Control said, "It's not something that a homeowner or business owner would just take on by themselves."
Bullard said it's normal to see an increase in the rat population this time of year, especially around construction sites. He said there's been a spike of calls about rat problems around Fort Sanders and Sequoyah Hills.
"When you disrupt a construction site or in major metropolitan areas, you tend to have a lot of rats around, and they're nocturnal, so they're out feeding at night," he said.
He said the Norway rat, which tends to burrow, is the most common one here.
"They populate pretty quickly," Bullard said. "One female can have anywhere from 6 to 8 pups per litter and up to 6 litters per year."
Seeing the rats multiply, business owners are anxious for the city to step in and take action.
"Get the road widened so they can actually get the trucks back here to actually take the trash out," Puca said.
"We know that as soon as it's freezing temperatures and stuff like that, they're going to want to come inside, so whatever help we can get from the city, we'd appreciate it," Luttrell said.
The businesses 10News spoke to said rats have not come inside. They said they do pest control every month, especially as construction continues near them.
