Saugus officials try to contain Cliftondale Square rat problem

SAUGUS – Cliftondale Square rat infestations have prompted town officials to place rodent control traps in the area.Board of Selectmen Clerk Wendy Reed said she had gotten several calls from residents concerned over the black boxes, and police fielded a few calls themselves from residents spotting the “suspicious” items.The boxes? placement in Cliftondale Square comes a week after attorney Marc Chapdelaine asked the managers from Dunkin? Donuts, Subway and Banana Splitz to move their shared dumpster, convinced it was the source of the rat infestation worth more than $100,000 worth of property damage for his clients, who are neighbors of the businesses.Department of Public Works Director Brendan O?Regan said Tuesday he was recently approached by Department of Public Health Director Frank Giacalone, who asked if road construction at Cliftondale Square could be the cause of the increase of rats in the area.O?Regan said, in his experience, rats did not typically make a home in road infrastructure because of the dangers posed from cars, and there has been no construction in the area since last fall. According to O?Regan, the traps were placed in anticipation of construction that will resume in August on the square with the final overlay of Lincoln Avenue.Residents have raised their voices over a different set of concerns at the other end of Lincoln Avenue at the Lynn-Saugus border. At a recent Board of Selectmen meeting, board members said they have received complaints over drainage problems in that area, from residents who claimed flooding was worse than it had been at the start of the Lincoln Avenue road project.O?Regan, who was hired late last year, couldn?t comment on the design of the project. But he referred to a letter to the selectmen from engineering consultants CDM that read that the end result of the road construction would be a more pervious surface and therefore, O?Regan paraphrased, “runoff should be less than the runoff before.”Residents will have to wait until August for that result. Currently, the project is 60 percent completed, said O?Regan.