I have lived on Beacon Hill for many years, and last evening I saw something I have never seen before. As I walked along Phillips Street up the Hill, I saw a rat dragging a full bag of garbage across the sidewalk. As I approached, the rat quickly pulled the bag into the street and under a parked car. As I walked by, I looked under the car and saw the rat tearing into the bag. This was a first for me seeing such a bold rat maneuver, although I did once see a rat run across Garden Street carrying a full slice of pizza with the crust gripped in its mouth. (Pepperoni, I think).
At the recent special hearing held at Boston City Hall on Oct. 22, 2026 (see BHT, Oct. 30, 2026 issue, “Councilor Flynn Again Calls for City ‘Rat Czar’ at Special Hearing on Rodents ”), Councilor Flynn noted that the rat issue in the City is “not getting better, in fact, it is getting worse.” He is absolutely correct. At the hearing, it was noted that Boston was recently named among the Top 10 most rat-infested cities in America. Beacon Hill, among other neighborhoods, is no doubt helping Boston earn this dubious distinction. Unfortunately, in parts of the city like Beacon Hill, there isn’t adequate room for large trash barrels to be left on the sidewalk or inside homes, and as such, they can’t be used to store resident’s garbage until trash pickup day. Instead, plastic garbage bags must be used and put out on the sidewalks for collection. And when the garbage bags are left out too long on the residential sidewalks, the rats feast!
I think that one of the key causes for Beacon Hill’s exploding rat problem stems from the City’s change of the garbage beginning pickup time in the summer of 2019 from 7 a.m. to 6 a.m. on garbage pickup days. As a result, Beacon Hill residents now mostly put their garbage out the night before the pickup day – as early as 5 p.m. – with the garbage sitting out overnight, thereby effectively feeding Beacon Hill’s rats. Prior to 2019, the garbage on Beacon Hill was picked up beginning at 7 a.m. he beginning pickup time change was made because the City had entered in a multi-million-dollar contract with East Boston-based Capitol Waste Services, and the new contract allowed the waste hauler to begin garbage pickups on Beacon Hill as early as at 6 a.m.
What resulted is not surprising: because of the earlier pickup time, Beacon Hill residents began to almost exclusively put out their garbage the night before, so as to not have to get up before 6 a.m. on pickup days to put out their garbage bags. (A few of us diehards still get up at 6 a.m. on trash collection days and put out our garbage bags then.) And as a result, more garbage is now being put out the night before garbage pickup day than ever before.
At the hearing held at City Hall on Oct. 22, 2026, Councilor Durkan, who represents Beacon Hill, urged that the City implement same-day trash pickups in an effort to curb rodent infestations. As the Councilor noted, leaving thin plastic bags of garbage out overnight on Beacon Hill, which is the status quo in that neighborhood, isn’t a workable solution to the neighborhood’s problem with rats. Instead, Councilor Durkan recommended scheduling garbage pickup for late morning on pickup days so that residents wouldn’t have any excuse for putting out their garbage the night before. Councilor Durkan is 100 percent on target with her proposal – the only real solution to the rat problem is to deprive the Beacon Hill neighborhood’s rats of their overnight food supply.
The City’s contract with Capitol Waste Services is up for renewal in early 2027. Therefore, the City of Boston must insist that as part of its next garbage hauling contract, there has to be a requirement that garbage collection on Beacon Hill and other City neighborhoods that utilize plastic garbage bags cannot begin before 9 a.m. at the earliest on garbage pickup days. The City should also mandate that residents not be permitted to put out their garbage the night before pickup days, and instead, be limited to putting out their garbage only during daylight hours immediately prior to 9 a.m. on garbage pickup days. The City now has a real opportunity to actually make a real dent in the rat problem surrounding us. Only if the City commits to implementing this simple change in the next garbage hauling contract in 2027, will our neighborhoods, including Beacon Hill, ever be able to see the light at the end of the “rat” tunnel.
Rob Whitney is an attorney, and lives on Phillips Street on Beacon Hill with his family. He is the former Chair of the Beacon Hill Civic Association.