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Chris Honoré: Was the midterm election a mandate? ... Our View: ... Ashland Calendar ... Chris Honoré: Was the midterm election a mandate? ... Our View: ... ASHLAND SCHOOL DISTRICT Who you going to call? School has its own rodent-buster Maintenance man Parks leads district's war on pests (and he's winning) By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings DailyTidings.com By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Posted Nov. 2, 2014 @ 3:06 pm Updated Nov 2, 2014 at 3:07 PM By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Posted Nov. 2, 2014 @ 3:06 pm Updated Nov 2, 2014 at 3:07 PM » RELATED CONTENT • And the winners are ... Ashland students • AHS rated 'below average' despite high test scores • Budget committee members needed • Class sizes too large, teacher workload too heavy, survey... » Social News If Ashland’s rodents can have nightmares, if their tiny primordial brains include channels of fear deep enough to infect their sleep, surely the face of their eternal antagonist, their monster under the bed, their grinning Grim Reaper must belong to Rob Parks. Parks’ official title with the Ashland School District is grounds maintenance worker, but that’s just a formality. The truth is, any fur ball lucky enough to see his nice-guy face, his broad smile and escape with its vertebrae still fused to its skull likely has another name for him. He’s The Ratinator. He’s Mousechette. Basically, if you’re a rodent that camps out under, in or around one of ASDs buildings it’s only a matter of time before you’re ro-done. If you’re a rat and you see, smell or sense Parks walking in your direction, odds are he’s coming for you. Just look at the numbers. In the last three years, Parks estimates that he’s sent more than 100 fury souls to mice heaven, vanquished in the neighborhood of 60 rats and has helped colleague Don “Sprinkles” Harding, the district’s irrigation expert, snuff out 130 gophers and four moles. Harding handles most of the district’s gopher infestation, but since the district’s pest problem became big enough to demand a more, uh, aggressive approach about three years ago, Parks has been the man most responsible for keeping the rats and mice at bay. He estimates that pest control sucks up roughly half his time on the job now. And it’s not easy. “Oh, they’re everywhere,” he said. “They’re in my old house. They’re in my new house. A bunch of staff had me come over to their houses after work because they have them in their houses, too. …Rats, they don’t want to go where people live. They’re just using your place for a place to sleep pretty much. They’ll go out and get their food, bring it back in a lot of cases. You don’t really see them, but they’re prolific. If you pick five houses within three blocks of here and I bet we’d find rats in probably three of them.” Rats, explains Parks, are intelligent, sneaky, adaptable and frighteningly agile, able to squirm their way through a hole the size of a quarter, climb up and down ducts and two-by-fours as effortlessly as people climb stairs, and they can jump – heads up! — up to four feet. Once, a rat fell into a tall kitchen garbage can at Ashland High and, after being discovered by a staff member, sprang to within inches of the rim. When caught off-guard, they’ll run to their getaway holes, which could be tiny gaps underneath a cabinet or holes in sheetrock literally gnawed to dust. Parks didn’t know all this before ASD hired him as a groundskeeper four years ago, but he was forced to learn after the district named him its Integrated Pest Management specialist a year after he arrived (every district is required by Oregon law to have one). Parks didn’t take his new responsibilities lightly. He read up on everything rodent — what they eat, where they sleep, how they enter buildings, why, their breeding habits (a roof rat can pump out up to 30 babies a year), size range, speed, secret handshakes, you name it. And yes, a great deal of his research centered on how best to trap the varmints. As in rat trap. As in spring-loaded bar, trigger mechanism, nibble-nibble, snap, hasta la vista, Jerry. Parks could do without that part of the job. Ideally, he says, they could capture the rats in a box, drive them out to the country and drop them off. There are a few problems with that solution, however. For one, rats and mice — both hover just above the bottom of the food chain — placed miles away from their nest do not retire to a life of rat utopia tucked under a oak tree in a wheat field next door to Mrs. Frisby. They die trying to retrace their steps, or — more likely — become somebody else’s problem, which, explains Parks, kind of defeats the purpose. And poison? That may look more humane on the outside, but the anticoagulants found in most rodent poisons cause internal bleeding, hypovolemic shock and severe anemia, all of which may later be passed on to the predator unlucky enough to capture and eat the debilitated rodent – a phenomena known as secondary poisoning. So really, Parks says, the only viable option for the district is the one he’s employed — cutting off the rodents’ food supply, sealing up the buildings and trapping. “It’s not just better cost-wise but especially health-wise,” Parks said. “As humanely as possible, I think it’s better just to (kill) them. These (traps) are instant. And the way that I’ve got it figured out and the trigger set, we don’t miss and when we get them they’re dead instantly. So it’s just done. Same thing with the gophers.” Sometimes, the source of the infestation is obvious and the rodents quickly disposed of. A few teachers were eating and visiting in a lounge at AHS one day when a rat, spooked by the clatter, suddenly burst out of hiding, scampered across the floor and disappeared under a cupboard. Parks discovered a small gap under the cupboard, through which the rats were able to travel from room to room without detection. He sealed it with boards, installed a door sweep and set out traps. Problem solved. Other times, it’s more complicated than that. One mysterious rat caper could have spawned another CSI spinoff. Parks discovered evidence of rats in a storage room in Ashland High’s health building off Mountain Avenue. Rats had gnawed their way through the ceiling and had the run of the place over the summer, climbing down the walls and feasting on snacks that were left in a box. But how was this possible? The building’s ground-level perimeter is solid concrete sealed tight — and there’s none of the four-inch hole for a two-inch pipe problems that plague some of the other buildings. Parks did some detective work and eventually traced the rats’ point of origin to a gap between the giant concrete slab that makes up the base of the building and the structure itself in a dirt-floored, basement-like, cavernous chamber of a room used for storage. “This,” he says, pointing up to where a slant of light can be seen cutting through the dark interior, “is where I had my 'ah-ha' moment.” So he sealed up the room — steel vents, boards and polyurethane-based insulating foam are the tools of the trade — and stopped the rats in their tracks. He knew he couldn’t prevent the little scavengers from entering the storage room — the crack ran the length of the building and was impossible to completely seal — but he could stop them from turning the office rooms into their personal playground. So he created this sort of fire line and worked to hold it. “Had any more visitors?” he asks as he walks through the doors during a quick inspection Thursday morning. The answer: “No, thank heavens.” Which is great news because Parks has a lot of ground to cover, and a lot of work to do. When he’s not mowing lawns, he’s setting traps; when he’s not setting traps, he’s checking them; when he’s not checking them, he’s replacing gnawed-through vents. He also has to educate the staff on preventative measures (“And still, that’s a constant struggle. You get new teachers, you get people that forget about it. It’s horrible”), which he accomplishes through a PowerPoint presentation, and complete eight hours of training a year. Then there’s the research — hours spent scouring the web for information, tips, strategies that maybe he didn’t consider. Because that’s what it takes to stay ahead of the rodents. Actually, that’s what it takes just to keep up with them. Parks isn’t complaining though. “I love it,” he said. “Mowing lawns is really boring in a pretty short amount of time. But with this, every day is something new. You’re always learning new things and new tricks.” Somewhere, a rat is shuddering. Joe Zavala can be reached at 541-776-4469 or [email protected].   By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings DailyTidings.com By Joe Zavala Ashland Daily Tidings Posted Nov. 2, 2014 @ 3:06 pm Updated Nov 2, 2014 at 3:07 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. fantasy football Breaking Down Who to Start in Fantasy Football Week 12 Nov. 17, 2014 at 4:52 pm Top Week 12 Waiver-Wire Targets for Fantasy Owners' Playoff Push Nov. 17, 2014 at 1:38 pm Players to Own in Crowded Backfields After Week 11 Nov. 17, 2014 at 12:00 pm C.J. 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