there apparently have been more rats hanging about some of the basements around our two apartment buildings, so our landlord is checking things out. he said that our compost may be a problem, so i told him we could do whatever needed (seal it up more or just remove it) if he or anyone else was having angst over it. i imagine the compost could be aggraving the issue, so i guess we can just remove it since i have seen rats in it during the winter. of course, removing ours may not solve the problem, since there are two other compost bins around (perhaps not as used as ours tho). jeff, our landlord, was going to get back to us on what we should do since he is sending out an exterminator to look over things shortly.