Cambridge Rat Reports Are Way Down From the 2022 Peak, but a Weekend Complaint Says Mice Are in King Open School Classrooms
Cambridge's 311 system logged 368 rodent sightings January through September, about half of 2022's total. One fresh report targets a public school.
Cambridge has been fighting rats for years, and the city's own complaint data says it's actually getting somewhere. Residents filed 368 rodent sighting reports through Commonwealth Connect, the city's 311 app, from January through September 2026.
Compare that to the same months back in the day: 730 in 2022, 607 in 2021, 645 in 2020. Since then it's been 324 in 2023, 421 in 2024 and 407 in 2025. So 2026 is running about half of the 2022 peak and a little under last year. Still way above pre-2020, though, when it ran under 200 a year, so don't break out the champagne.
Now the one that'll get parents' attention. On Saturday, Oct. 17, someone filed a report listing the King Open School as the address. The complaint alleges "many mice" are being seen inside classrooms after students leave, and that they're in "all of the sink cabinets in the every classroom." As of Monday the city's system showed the ticket as "Acknowledged."
To be clear, that's one person's report in a public complaint system. Boston Uncut hasn't confirmed what's going on inside the building, and the city hasn't said anything publicly about it that we found. We'll update this if Cambridge Public Schools or the city responds.
How we reported this
Boston Uncut queried the City of Cambridge open data portal's Commonwealth Connect Service Requests: Rodent Sightings dataset (updated Oct. 19, 2026), counting tickets by year for January through September. The King Open School complaint is quoted from the public ticket text and status. Commonwealth Connect counts reports, not confirmed infestations; one problem can be reported more than once.
