ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Pile after pile, street after street, the debris seems endless in Shore Acres.

“Ten-foot piles there. Whole lives,” said Jonathon Micklitsch, who lives in Shore Acres.

ABC Action News visited the neighborhood last Thursday.

The community of Shore Acres was hit hard by Hurricane Helene’s record storm surge in September.

Hurricane Milton only made the situation worse in October.

“It was horrible. I mean, I empathize with some of these people. You know everyone is a different demographic, a different situation, and there are people who will never get over it. They have nowhere to go. They’re living in houses that probably shouldn’t be lived in because they can’t afford to go anywhere else,” Micklitsch said.

The piles of debris have been there for weeks in many cases, now causing a new problem.

“We went from zero rats, never having a rat problem since I’ve been here, to now we have rats,” Micklitsch said.

This is a new problem.

“I’ve never had a rat problem. I have rat droppings, I just cleaned them up yesterday. It’s back. We have pitfalls,” Micklitsch said.

So far, they don’t really work.

“Next door, I saw rats running in their piles of garbage. Certainly, my street is nothing like the other streets. We were very lucky,” Micklitsch said.

This is why people fear that rats will be even more numerous in the streets where there is even more debris.

“The fact is, we’re all dealing with rats now. We’ve never had this problem before,” Micklitsch said.

Frustration increases, as does concern about the rat problem.

Neighbors appeal to Mayor Ken Welch.

“They’re already making jokes about stakes. They call them Welch piles,” Micklitsch said.

A sign reading “Where’s Welch?” was sitting on a pile.

People wonder why it’s taking so long. It’s even more urgent now that they see rats.

“Ultimately, it becomes a health issue at some point if we don’t pick up the waste. We need to pick up the trash so we can alleviate some of the problems we haven’t had,” Micklitsch said.

ABC Action News saw a claw truck when we visited the neighborhood last Thursday. But people think the withdrawal isn’t happening fast enough.

“We want this to be done as quickly as possible. People just want to put this behind them and try to move on and forget about it. It was quite a storm,” Micklitsch said.

The city posted this on social media on October 25 about debris removal:

Today we celebrate progress. Two weeks after Milton, our debris contractors cleared more than 200,000 cubic yards of debris, twice as much as Hurricanes Idalia and Lan combined.

Our trucks go out from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and work hard to clean our city. We estimate that the two storms will generate a total of 1 million cubic meters. We are nearly 25% complete and on track to finish within our 90 day window.

A huge thank you to our dedicated crews and resilient community for your support and patience during this recovery.

Together we will achieve this!

ABC Action News reached out to the city for comment on the rat problem and an update on debris removal. Representatives have not yet responded.