BY ADAM ATKINSONNorth Country This Week

POTSDAM — Rats, allegedly coming from a Pine Street property, has the village planning several strategies to address the problem.

A business owner on the street and a resident each brought the issue to the village board of trustees at its meeting Tuesday, May 28.

Daryl Kolanko, owner of Potsdam Agway, said there is an infestation of the vermin plaguing his store at 14, 16, 18 Pine St. coming from a house across the street at 7 Pine St.

“As most of you know, as I know daily, it’s disgusting,” Kolanko said. The Agway owner said he doesn’t know where the owner of the building at 7 Pine is but he was asking the village to come up with an immediate fix.

“I’ve been there 31 years and I've never had a rat in my entire 31 years in business at that place. I’ve been infested with rats since the fall of 2023. I’ve incurred probably in the last two months, two to three thousand dollars of damaged pet food that I’ve had to dispose of,” he said.

Kolanko said he incurred that cost as well as hiring a pest control service to install rat bait stations at his property.

“Every morning I come into work I go out in the middle with a flashlight, check the ten rat traps that we’ve set ourselves and over the last two to three months I’ve caught 10 to 15 rats,” he said.

Kolanko said other businesses in the area have seen rats coming from 7 Pine as well, and there is a trash issue at the place.

Pat Gagnon who has lived at 34 Pine St. for more than three decades also spoke to the board. He pointed out that there is a village recreation facility on the street and children walking by along with a good deal of other pedestrian traffic on Pine St

Gagnon said that residents on Pine Street in general keep up their properties pretty well.

“But I don’t think it's a good thing for Pine Street, the way that it is (7 Pine). I think at the very least it should be boarded up and have all the trash picked up,” Gagnon said.

Village Code Enforcement Officer Greg Thompson told the board that he has visited the property and reached out numerous times by phone and letter to the new owner, who is apparently out-of-state, to address the issues there and received no response.

“We’re going to take a different attack at it this time. We’re going to attack it as an attractive nuisance,” Thompson said. Thompson said the residence is a very dangerous situation that invites young people and adults to want to try to get in there and see just how bad the interior is.

“Obviously, the place has been condemned. The agreement the individual (owner) had with the village was that he was going to tear it down and make a parking lot. Well, that should of been done a long time ago. There’s no excuse for it still standing,” Thompson said.

The code enforcement officer said he was unaware of the rat infestation and he thanked Kolanko for bringing it to the village’s attention because the vermin issues allow the village to use a whole new portion of state code to combat the issue.

“So now we are going to come at it with a multi-faceted approach and see if we can get something done, I’m hoping, in the next week or two, get a response on what his (the owner’s) intentions are, and get a timeline in writing from this individual and we’re going to hold him to it,” Thompson said.

Village Deputy Mayor Steve Warr asked if the village could knock down the building and bill the owner through taxes. Thompson said he would reach out to the county and find out. He said, however, that the property is not technically classified as a “zombie” property yet because the owner has just claimed ownership as a new owner.

Thompson said he would want to confer with legal counsel on that strategy before going in that direction.