Exterminators Working At Rat-Infested Lakewood House

LAKEWOOD, CO – A vacant home near Smith reservoir, found in June to be infested with rats, is being treated by exterminators after the city got a court order to enter the home and inspect, city officials said.

Rats were filmed by television crews crawling in and out of holes in the side of the house and on the roof at 1619 S. Lee Street back in June. Since then, the city got a court order for the city's Community Action Team officers to inspect the inside of the home, and found a "significant and disturbing" rat infestation, said Stacie Oulton, the city's public information officer.

The owner of the house, Paula Dieckman, agreed to work with the city to hire professional exterminators, Oulton said, but the extent of the problem was so large that the city is also paying for extra services including a regular pickup of dead rats around the house and in the neighborhood.

When contacted by Patch, Dieckman declined to comment for this article.

Neighbors have complained to police about the smell around the property for more than a year, police reports show. When officers would stop at the property, they were not allowed inside, but reported strong smells of feces and urine coming from the house. Officers were so concerned they asked the Jefferson County Adult Protective Services to look in on two women living there, one in her 80s and one disabled.

Both women have vacated the house now, Oulton said.

"The house is uninhabitable, no one can live there right now and no one has been living there," she said.

Police reports show in June of 2017, the property owners were given a citation for "bags of trash on the patio" that neighbors said were attracting rats. Neighbors told police a few weeks later that the property owners moved the bags into the garage and had not gotten rid of them. Dieckman reportedly told police on June 26, 2017 that her basement had flooded and that the family had put the items on the porch to "dry them out." She denied that rats were coming from her property, but said they were coming from Smith Reservoir behind her home. She told police she had hired an exterminator and had baited for rats.

In October, 2017 reports show Lakewood police came to the home to do a welfare check on the two women living in the house. Officers reported a "pungent odor of urine and feces," that caused an officer to turn away from the doorway. The officers were refused entrance to the house, but looking through the open door, one officer reported seeing a dog and "several pieces of feces on the floor." Officers also reported "a strong odor of something decomposing or animal waste" and that it appeared animals had chewed holes through the siding. The two women appeared healthy, the officer reported, and were neatly dressed. The 84-year-old resident told the officer her home had flooded again in the basement a few days earlier and she had hired people to air out the room with fans. She said it had been more difficult to maintain her home after the death of her husband 17 years ago, reports said. Officers asked Jefferson Count Adult Protective Services to follow up. The home owners were issued a citation for odors and told they needed to clean and sanitize the residence.

Code enforcement officers followed up in December, 2017 with a request to inspect the inside of the house to confirm that it had been cleaned up. Dieckman said she wanted to meet with her attorney before allowing officers into the house.

Code enforcement officers visited agin in January and February, when they noted a video camera appeared to have been set up by the front door. Again the officers reported "the strong, pungent smell of an unkept house (waste and/or animal feces)." The smell was "noticeable from the outside with the doors of the house closed," an officer reported on Feb. 12. The officers made another contact with JeffCo Adult Protective Services regarding the house on Feb. 20. A case worker at JeffCo APS said she would attempt to contact the residents of the house on Feb. 22. On Feb. 23, when officers arrived at the house, one reported seeing Paula Dieckman drive away without stopping. Dieckman called the police department later that day and said she was turning the matter over to an attorney. Officers noted they had no contact with any attorney or law firm regarding the case.

Officers returned on March 22 with members of West Metro Fire Department and the Lakewood Community Action Team. No one answered when they knocked at the front and back door. They reported the smell was now a "mild odor" probably from unsanitary conditions related to pet waste. The officers closed the case, saying the case did not "rise to the level of further enforcement action."

On June 15, officers again visited the house and observed evidence of rats. The house was declared uninhabitable, and the city asked a judge to issue a warrant to inspect.

Now, Oulton said, the city has to wait until the rats have been exterminated, a process that is taking longer than the neighbors would like, she admitted.

Meeting by phone with experts from the Colorado Department of Agriculture and CSU Extension, the city and exterminators decided that they should not use poisons to fumigate the house to kill the numerous rats because it caused too much risk in a dense residential area.

"The bait the exterminators use is basically blocks of [flavored] fiberglass, and it takes a long time to get all the rats to eat it," she said.

The Jefferson County Department of Public Health said in a statement that rats are not known to carry disease in Jefferson County, and can be considered "more of a nuisance."

"Any possible health concerns are restricted to the inside of the home and to individuals who may live in or enter the home, where they may be exposed to microbial contamination left by the rats in dust, urine and droppings. Any health risks are confined to the infested home," the health department said in a handout for neighbors. "Those who have houses surrounding a rat-infested home are at a very low risk for any health problems related to the infestation."

JeffCo Health department suggested that neighbors install snap traps on their own property to trap rats leaving the infested house.

Meanwhile, the odors from the house are still very strong, and that "continues to be a tough thing for the neighborhood," Oulton said. "Once we get rid of the rats, then we have to move forward with doing some kind of abatement to deal with the smell." She said, the city would prefer that be done by the homeowner, but in this case, the extreme condition of the house might again require the city to assist with the cleanup, which might require another court order, she said.

Related: Rat-Infested Lakewood Property: City Takes Action

Read the JeffCo Public Health Department notice here:

See Denver7's video of rats on the property here.

Image via Shutterstock

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