By: Mike Koury | Woodward Talk | Published May 27, 2025
BERKLEY — A social media post about a resident putting down rat poison to keep dogs off the lawn, which turned out to be untrue, led to a Berkley Public Safety Department response.
According to Berkley police, they were notified of a May 16 post in a Berkley community forum on Facebook that said a resident had spread rat poison on the resident’s own yard to keep dogs off it.
“The resident had claimed he had placed poison down on the yard to keep animals off, and had made a mention to a passerby, you know, ‘Keep your dog off the lawn. I put rat poison down,’” Berkley Detective Lt. Andrew Hadfield said. “There was communication that (they) had showed (them) a bucket of rat poison. And so they were fearful that could endanger unknowing people that were walking past.”
Police were alerted to the post and went to check out the home the next day, at 8:30 a.m. May 17, in the 3300 block of Ellwood Avenue.
Hadfield said officers went to the home, talked to the homeowner and looked around the yard, but they didn’t find any rat poison in the yard.
The homeowner told police, according to Hadfield, that numerous people walking their dogs — even on a leash — had the dogs rolling around in the homeowner’s yard and grass.
“(They) had said to somebody that there was something down to keep them off the yard when, in fact, that was really just trying to keep them off (the lawn),” he said. “There was nothing put down. So, we didn’t see anything. There’s no evidence that he had actually been putting rat poison down.”
A city ordinance states, “No person shall throw or deposit any poisonous substance on any exposed public or private place where it endangers, or is likely to endanger, any animal or bird.”
The Public Safety Department posted an update May 17 on its social media in the hope that it would alleviate residents’ concerns on the issue and give warning to people on both sides of it.
“There’s some people in the community that were upset that (they) even made that (statement), because it causes community concern,” Hadfield said. “And other people supporting, ‘Hey, keep your dog off his lawn and they need to be on a leash.’ So, there’s obviously several different sides of the story, and then our side is kind of both sides. Don’t put rat poison down. Let’s keep our dogs under control. It’s always going to be a split decision on that.
“Obviously, we don’t want to harm animals, so we don’t want to be doing that, but we also have to respect people’s property, and just trying to get everybody to kind of get along through that,” he said.