Marblehead health board sues resident for feeding wildlife

MARBLEHEAD – The town’s Board of Health has filed a lawsuit against the owner of a home on Longview Drive whose alleged former practice of “dumping a large amount of a mixture of grain-and-seed type material on the ground” during the summer and fall created a rodent infestation, according to paperwork filed in Salem Superior Court.”Mr. (Louis M.) Fisher continues to feed wildlife ?. in a manner that is injurious not only to the health, safety and well-being of the defendants themselves, but also to their neighbors and the public in general,” according to the lawsuit filed on behalf of the town and the Board of Health.Board of Health Director Wayne O. Attridge stated in a letter included in the lawsuit filing that Fisher’s alleged activity is not only attracting rats to his neighbor’s yards, but an “excessive amount of pigeons that I witnessed feeding and waiting on the roof of your home.”Attridge declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday, except to say Fisher’s house has “a history of being bad” when it comes to rodent infestation.Speaking during an interview in the driveway of his home in a neighborhood of mostly large single-family homes, Fisher acknowledged that in the past he left out large amounts of feed to feed squirrels and birds, but said now he only puts out a small dish of peanuts.He feels he is being persecuted by some neighbors and the town officials who have brought the lawsuit against him and his wife.”They want to really do a number on me ? it’s pretty bad, it’s too bad. There’s some people who are definitely out to get me,” he said.Fisher’s attorney, Michael McArdle of Marblehead, acknowledged that there has been a rat infestation in the neighborhood and stressed that he wants to work with town officials on behalf of his client to solve the problem.”You have to understand Mr. Fisher has been there since 1992?.he’s been an animal lover all this time,” McArdle said. “He’s fed the wildlife without any problems.”McArdle said there’s no question there’s a rat problem in the neighborhood when there didn’t used to be one.”It’s upsetting to see rats in the environment that weren’t witnessed before,” he said.But McArdle doesn’t know if the rat problem is caused by his client feeding the animals or the previous construction of the nearby YMCA on Leggs Hill Road, which included a lot of blasting work.”To lay it (the blame for the rats) all at the feet of Mr. Fisher is a little unfair,” he said.He also called the town’s decision to file the lawsuit “unnecessary,” but acknowledged they have a legitimate public health threat to deal with.”I don’t fault Mr. Attridge for taking some action,” he said. “Their presence can’t be denied, you can see the rat holes.”Pamela Milligan, one of Fisher’s neighbors, declined to comment on the issue when reached by phone Monday.But she wrote several letters to the Board of Health complaining about the rat infestation in the neighborhood and reporting what she and pest control specialists she hired saw in her yard.”One exterminator told me that on his initial visit to our property he was alarmed that he saw ‘at least a dozen different rats coming from many directions in broad daylight,” she wrote in an October letter to the Board of Health.”Clearly when one sees a dozen rats in the middle of the day that means many more dozens of rats are underground in their burrows,” she wrote.Milligan also noted in another letter that she now worries that the presence of rats in the neighborhood – which she believes was caused by Fisher’s alleged practice of dumping corn-feed on the ground – is harming the public health of the neighborhood.She also reported that before the problems with the rats, Fisher had a large number of cats inside his home.In addition, a 2007 Fire Department report states that when firefighters responded to Fisher’s home for a report of a heart attack, they saw “several felines lounging about the furniture and resting on the open window sills ?. The floor was littered with fecal mat