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Rats infest high school in Fayette County

FAYETTE COUNTY, Ga. — Schools are very strict when it comes to trespassers, but at Starr’s Mill High in Fayette County, they’ve got some that just won’t leave.

"There was a rat in the ceiling, with the tail part hanging out,” school spokesperson Melinda Berry-Dreisbach said.

Officials say it has been a nagging problem since the start of the school year. Few teachers or students have seen rats, but they’ve heard them.

“I’m in the class where the rats were. It’s gross. I don’t like it,” student Bishop Robbins said.

"We were talking about how like a police officer smushed one of them. I just heard about it today,” student Jonathan Parrish said.

Parrish said he could hear the rats scratching in the ceiling.

Administrators would not escort a Channel 2 crew onto the campus to see any of the rat traps, but they say they have lots of them.

"I want to make it very clear that this is the first incident this year where they've seen a sighting of a rat in a room.  They can hear them running around up there. They know they're up there in the ceiling,” Berry-Dreisbach said.

Officials believe that a subdivision under construction across the street from the school might have disturbed a nesting sight and the rats went in search of a new home.

Administrators say poisons will be used when school is out for the summer.