Alan Hensher: If cats stay around, rats won’t
Re “Atwater delays rules on feral cats” (Page A1, Nov. 12): I’m glad the Atwater city council has decided to reconsider an ordinance to regulate the caregivers of “feral” cats.
Like others, I feed stray and abandoned cats and kittens. And I have a tale to tell: Once upon a time, I moved into an apartment complex in Merced. At first, few cats lived there. But I soon began to hear rats scratching inside the walls, and I found rat droppings under the water heater and in an outside closet. By and by, renters began to bring in cats, and after a while the sounds of the rats in the woodwork stopped. The moral of this story: When cats appear, rats disappear.
Alan Hensher, Merced
This story was originally published November 26, 2014 at 4:40 PM with the headline "Alan Hensher: If cats stay around, rats won’t."