Cambridge's 'Smart' Rat Traps Logged 3,032 Rodents So Far This Year, More Than Any Full Year in City Data; Resident Sightings Fell 10%
A single sewer device on Jefferson Street accounted for 209. May was the busiest month.
Original reporting from public records by Watchman Report staff ·
Cambridge's network of electronic rodent traps logged 3,032 catches from January through October this year, according to the city's public Smart Rat Boxes dataset. That is more than any full year in the data: 2,312 in 2023, 1,107 in 2024 and 1,726 in 2025, by Watchman Report's count. The devices, run by the city's contractor Modern Pest, include boxes placed mainly on public property and "smart pipes" in the sewers.
May was the busiest month, with 578 catches, followed by September (448) and July (407). The dataset was last updated Oct. 26, so October's total of 272 may be incomplete.
The single busiest device was a sewer unit listed at Jefferson Street, with 209 catches this year. A box along the fence line at Hoyt Field off Western Avenue logged 86, and a sewer unit on Prospect Street logged 63. The dataset lists 528 devices in all, 472 boxes and 56 pipes; 270 of them recorded no catches this year, by our count.
Resident reports moved the other way. Cambridge's Commonwealth Connect system received 420 rodent-sighting reports from Jan. 1 through Nov. 2, down from 468 in the same period of 2025 and far below the 789 recorded in 2022. By ZIP code, 02139 had the most this year (130), followed by 02138 (109) and 02140 (99), by our count.
The city says it uses sighting reports to locate problem areas for new boxes and pipes. Catch counts reflect how many devices are deployed and where, so they are not a direct measure of the rodent population.
Watchman Report downloaded two City of Cambridge open-data datasets on Nov. 3, 2026: "Smart Rat Boxes" (78bs-b5ig, updated Oct. 26), which lists catch/kill totals by device and month, and "Commonwealth Connect Service Requests - Rodent Sightings" (uz4w-baz5, updated Nov. 3). All totals, comparisons and ZIP code counts are Watchman Report's calculations. Individual sighting reports, including any naming businesses, were not used.
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