HIGHLAND — Residents in Highland will be looking for a Pied Piper if health officials can't solve the rat problem in their area soon.
Resident Sherri Shepherd told the Highland City Council this week that she has contacted the health department and intends to petition the Utah County Commission for help. She said the big Norway rats are not only invading her back yard and those of her neighbors but chasing her children and eating the neighbor's piglets.
Norway rats are large, aggressive rodents that average about a pound in weight and almost a foot in length. They nest under buildings and concrete slabs and live in garbage dumps, along stream beds and anywhere they can find food and water.
Two rat parents in theory can produce up to 359 million descendants within three years.
The neighbors in the Highland area suspect the rats are coming from the Fred Buhler ranch, a 19-acre spread behind a wooden facade at 5879 W. 10400 North. It's a collection of old cars, appliances, outhouses and assorted junk that Buhler occasionally markets as movie props. Buhler makes it clear when he talks that he considers it his antique treasure trove.
Joe Miner, executive director for the county health department, said the department believes the rats come and go and breed from the Buhler farm.
"This homeowner collects a lot of waste-type old cars and has 200 pigs," Miner said. "We're investigating this and trying to work with them to get them to help us control the rats."
Buhler, contacted Wednesday, said, "We have no rats here that I know of. If the neighbors have 'em, they ought to buy some poison and get rid of 'em."
Over the years, Utah County has tried unsuccessfully to clean up or close down the Buhler ranch.
Buck Rose, county planner, said the latest attempt came in January 1998, when Buhler was served with a notice of zoning violation. In 2000, Rose was asked to revisit the site and confirm that Buhler was still out of compliance.
Rose said several county attorneys have taken Buhler to court with various outcomes. At one point Buhler countersued, saying the county had no legal right to force him to comply with its beautification ordinance.
The Utah Supreme Court at that time upheld the county's right to demand compliance.
However, Buhler has repeatedly ignored the orders, sometimes meeting sheriff's deputies with a junkyard dog and a shotgun when they tried to enforce an order.
In the late 1970s, 700 vehicles were hauled off Buhler's property and he was told he could only keep a few vintage models.
Former county commissioner Malcolm Beck made it a campaign goal to get rid of the eyesore. He later mothballed his efforts because Highland City intended to annex the land.
"Highland decided against annexation because Buhler would have been grandfathered in," Rose explained. "He could have kept on doing what he was doing forever."
Rose said he isn't positive the county itself hasn't waited too long to deal with Buhler, who is now 75 and has been operating his junk yard for more than 25 years. Buhler's disdain is made clear by the numerous copies of court orders that paper his walls.
Rose said he found a case in North Dakota where the state supreme court determined that no passage of time could ever legalize a public nuisance.
"We need a law like that," Rose said.
County Commissioner Jerry Grover said it's a bad situation that the county isn't ignoring, it's just complicated.
"I think if you'll check the history on this, one of the problems is the estimated cost of cleanup would be $400,000 to $500,000. That would have to be paid by the taxpayers," he said. "The reality is, we're working on it, but it's a situation created not on my watch. As a health issue, it can be handled quicker."
Ron Tobler, a health department official, said he was not surprised to find evidence of Norway rats in Highland. "They're spread all along the Wasatch Front and in pockets in the Springville and Provo foothills where there are some very nice homes," Tobler said.
"They're not unusual. We'll never get rid of them," he said.
Tobler said he advised residents to put dog and cat food up away from where rats can't get it, trim bushes and cut lawns to avoid giving them a nesting place and to set traps. He doesn't recommend poisoning except as a last-ditch measure and then only under specific guidelines.
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com