What happens to the rats in Carabanchel? Enigma in the "third best neighborhood in the world"

Dawn in the Oporto neighborhood, Madrid. It's nine in the morning and you can already see people in the bars, having a hot coffee for breakfast or buying some tobacco at the tobacconist's shop on the avenue.. It's Friday, and we have to gather strength. This corner of the city is now part of one of the fashionable districts, Carabanchel. A recent survey carried out and published by Time Out magazine awarded it the bronze medal in the ranking of the coolest places to live not only in Spain, but in the world.. But something doesn't add up: there are rats.

Just into September, the public health service of the Madrid City Council recognized that rodents had been detected in the Oporto sewer and in Valle de Oro, a children's park in the area.. The department in charge of pest management and prevention in common spaces warned of several rat burrows in the Carabanchel district. Especially in the aforementioned areas. In a statement, the municipal team clarified that these animals will be monitored and their presence will be treated according to prevention mechanisms.. What are they, and how long have they taken to take effect?

48 hours margin

It is the Madrid Salud service that acts against pests. Regarding the alarm in Carabanchel, after the summer sighting, they explain that, as a general rule, they have to respond to the warnings they receive in less than 48 hours. This is what they claim to have done with the rats in Porto. They do not know how they began to make themselves known, but on other occasions it has occurred as a result of environmental incidents that affected the sewage system or caused the appearance of burrows.. Both in those cases and in the latter, the solution is to redouble the cleaning and treatments until they are extinguished..

It is the vector control department that coordinates everything. The Madrid City Council responds to this newspaper that the amount intended to get rid of the pests increased from 1.2 to 2 million euros, although it does not detail from what date to what date the change occurred. But the residents of Porto, although many believe so, have not yet woken up from the nightmare of the rats. Consistory sources reported on Monday that “in recent days” a burrow has been detected again in the Valle de Oro passage, where they were also sighted months ago..

José Soriano was one of the neighbors who gave the notice. He is 35 years old and has lived in the neighborhood for nine years.. “It's getting worse,” he sums up his stay.. In his free time he manages a Twitter account (@PasaenOporto) in which he posts photos and reports dirt or other problems in the place.. On November 2, the statement in which Madrid Salud announced the presence of rats was echoed. Then he sent a notice as an individual and the response was a confirmation, more than any other addition.. Although he himself admits that he hasn't seen any in a while, he denounces that the neighborhood has other problems that worry him more: “Cleanliness, noisy gatherings in the square, or security…”

Summer among rodents

Although now they seem to be back, Porto is not the epicenter of rats in Madrid. According to the most recent official data, from 2018, Puente de Vallecas is at the top. Like Carabanchel or Arganzuela, this area also raised the alert in summer for rodents. Then several active outbreaks were detected, although in the Carabanchel neighborhood everything seemed like a bad dream: just a few months later, no one claims to have seen or known anything.. The Madrid City Council, however, confirms that an active focus continues in Porto that today may extend. The rats are still there, they're just underground..

“Really, rats?”, is surprised by Juan Carlos, an operator who works every day between Porto and Vítalegre.. He knows that asphalt well, and “neither before nor now” has he seen animals of this type running around there. something occurs to him. “Maybe someone in the big square knows something,” and points to the other side of the road.. Crossing the traffic light opens a small square that houses a small park, several stone benches and various businesses around.. It is without a doubt the nerve center of the neighborhood, where many begin and end the day.

Upon arrival, beer cans, garbage, chewing gum stuck to the floor or to the trash cans. A street cleaning worker who was working the morning shift that Friday laughed, ironically, at the mere question.. “Rats, I don't know, but liters of beer, as many as you want!” he exclaimed, looking out of the corner of his eye at various cans, bottles or crumpled posters under the trees or on the ground.. Carmen, that was her name, has been doing her rounds in that area for weeks and to date, although she had “heard something”, she has not seen a trace of animals coming out of the sewers.

In fact, one of the hypotheses that the City Council pointed out was precisely the accumulation of garbage as a possible origin of the rats. “We have found many belongings outside the bins and that favors the escape of rodents,” they say from the Madrid City Council. The way to act, removing prevention and cleaning, is based on placing “baits” and plugging the “sewers or nearby public channels”, or asking the communities of owners in the area for more prudence when leaving garbage in the area. view, for example.