It’s not a club anyone wants to join, but it seems a majority of people in our three municipalities have some kind of story when it comes to experiencing rats in their own backyards. Maybe you’ve found them taking refuge in your shed, or you’ve had an out-of-body moment of fear shoot through you when you start to take a step off your porch and have one zip underneath your foot, or simply seen one run across the road 50 feet ahead of you when you’re taking the dog for a walk in the neighborhood, there’s no use denying the simple fact:

The rats are among us. They don’t respect property boundaries. And they aren’t asking for our permission.

If you have not had the personal misfortune of walking into your garage to be greeted by the sounds of scurrying little footsteps and panicked squeaking, consider yourself very lucky. Because it could happen to you tomorrow, or next year, even if you do everything you’re supposed to do.

While a household with a tidy, neat and clean property that carefully bags its trash, keeps its ancillary structures free of clutter, and always picks up the animal waste in the yard is certainly less likely to attract rats, those prevention efforts mean much less if the house is bordered by a neighbor or two who completely disregard all of those precautions.

Our persistent rodent problem serves as a microcosm of a much larger issue. It shows how a society can function at its fullest potential only when everyone shares responsibility for it, and there are few more visceral symbols of our collective failure to hold ourselves accountable to this standard than a hulking rat scurrying from one overflowing dumpster or garbage can to the next.

While we are grateful that Cranston, Johnston and Warwick all have dedicated rodent-control workers who bravely battle an insurgent force far outnumbering them, the reality is they are fighting a war that cannot be won through extermination efforts alone.

The only way we can meaningfully reduce the rat population is to stop giving them such fertile grounds to thrive and reproduce. This means everyone – residents, businesses and governmental bodies – needs to work together to hold one another accountable, educate one another, and when those two fail, report and bring forth penalties to those who are not taking responsibility for carrying their portion of the load.

The rats themselves, although easily scapegoated, cannot be blamed for doing what rats are genetically driven to do: survive at all costs, using whatever means are available. They are smart and cunning, but we are smarter and more capable. So let’s prove it.