Demand That VPWRS Are Transparent About Traps And Poisons!

A little over a week ago (4/22/19), a group of my neighbors gathered outside to discuss a rat population in the neighborhood. One of our neighbors stated she had pest control come by twice to put rat poison in her backyard. She also said that the coming Friday (4/26/19) a business was coming over to lay out actual rat traps. A day after this discussion, my family and I began noticing dead and dying rats in our backyard. It took them over an hour (from when we noticed them) to die -- struggling to breathe, twitching, eventually losing mobility, becoming unresponsiveness, relieving their bodily fluids, and succumbing to the poison. This was extremely disturbing to us. Besides this, the stench from the body count was becoming sickening. We noticed that several of the affected rats were dying on another neighbor's property (while she was out of town, unaware of the situation).

On that Tuesday (4/23), we rang the doorbell of the neighbor who had admitted to having poison in her backyard. She did not answer, though her one car was parked outside. A couple of hours later, I placed a polite and friendly letter detailing our concerns and what we were witnessing on her front door, with a phone number provided so we could discuss alternative, humane methods with her. She never responded.

This past Friday (4/26), the trappers she had mentioned came to her house. My sister and I noticed their truck and decided to calmly approach to make some inquiries. I captured our brief encounter with them on recording. At first I addressed a female, who was immediately dismissive and wouldn't even tell me the name of her business. Several minutes passed and a male emerged from the house, who I approached the same way, first asking what kind of traps they were using, and then again asking the name of his business. He wouldn't answer either question, used a very harsh tone with me, spoke over me, and would only say, "It's none of your business," and if we started interfering, "there is going to be trouble." After about a minute, he merely ignored us. He went to the back of his truck, placed the traps in a large, black trash bag so we couldn't tell which they were, and went back inside.

A little while later -- having not even addressed the neighbor herself, or set foot on her property -- they called the police on me and my sister. By this point we had already been sitting on our front yard and had said nothing further to anyone involved. The police said our neighbor felt "harassed" and that we could no longer go on her property (which we hadn't since Tuesday), and could no longer speak to her (which I hadn't since Monday when she spoke freely to me).

My family and I understand it's her property and she's within her legal right. All we ever hoped for was educating her on the agonizing, slow death these rats were going through, and try to convince her to use humane traps instead. We were immediately, without incident, dismissed, not getting a chance to plead our case. Now all I'm asking is that Virginia Professional Wildlife Removal Services (we were able to memorize the logo on their shirts and make a Google search), who were there that day and who were so rude and unprofessional, be required by Henrico County (and everywhere else they conduct business) to be 100% transparent about their bait, lures, traps, poisons, etc. On their website they are extremely vague, and repeatedly tout their "humane" methods while never actually detailing what those might be. We deserve to know how all their contraptions work and the ensuing suffering, sickness, and death--in plain, clear text readily availabe on their website and elsewhere. It would be the least they could do, so people could make informed (and more compassionate) choices. Thank you!