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LINCOLN PARK — When Caroline Novak first approached the man with a satchel stuffed with exotic and expensive nuts, she did so politely, curious about why squirrels in Lincoln Park deserved such fancy food.
At this point, about a month ago now, Novak and other neighbors had seen the freelance feeders dropping hazelnuts and other top-shelf snacks for at least two years. People reported seeing multiple workers walking around the lawn delicately decorating the dirt at the foot of the tall oaks and elms with peanuts and pecans.
The feeding frenzy has caused more harm than good, neighbors say. The nuts being left and fed to the squirrels has caused an untenable rat infestation in Lincoln Park and is being carried out by a billionaire family that has a long history of funding climate denialism.
For years, the Seid family — Barre Seid and his wife, Barbara — have hired people to walk around the neighborhood and Lincoln Park to carry bags of fancy nuts to feed the neighborhood squirrels, according to neighbors and 43rd Ward Ald. Timmy Knudsen.
The frequent feeding has caused thousands of dollars of damage to Park District property, disrupted Green City Market operations for multiple summers, attracted a colony of rats who have made a home at the base of several trees in Lincoln Park and has made parts of the park unusable for neighbors, Novak said.
It’s also caused a good amount of hostility between the satchel-wearing culprits and the residents of Lincoln Park.
When Novak approached the bagged man on a recent morning on a walk with her family, she asked politely, she said, “What’s with all the fancy nuts?”
“None of your f—ing business,” the satchel-wearing bagman said to Novak. “You don’t own Lincoln Park. You’re not the only person who owns property here. Get the f— away from me.”
## ‘They Don’t Bat An Eye’ At Thousands Of Fees
The home of Barre and Barbara Seid at 334 W. Wisconsin St. has been at the center of complaints about a wildlife-feeding operation that neighbors say has contributed to rat problems in Lincoln Park. Credit: Patrick Filbin/Block Club Chicago
Long before the rat holes were dug in the dirt at Lincoln Park, Novak and other neighbors noticed an unusual amount of nuts were left outside the house at 334 W. Wisconsin St.
The house sits on a quiet block less than a mile west of Lincoln Park, its exterior mostly covered by ivy with multiple private property signs posted at its front gate. On Thursday afternoon, more than a dozen squirrels climbed their way up the trees in the front yard and along the nut-filled ground.
The house belongs to the Seids, according to property records. Barre Seid is the billionaire owner of Chicago’s Tripp Lite, an electronics company. Seid, 94, made headlines a few years ago for donating $1.6 billion to a conservative political action group run by Leonard Leo, in what was and still is considered the biggest political advocacy donation in history. The donation helped ultimately secure the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, ProPublica reported.
Over the past few months, the Seid-family feeding has ramped up, forcing Ald. Knudsen to levy civil fines for causing damage to the park. The problem with ticketing a billionaire tens of thousands of dollars? They can pay it.
“I always say ticketing usually leads to better behavior. It’s how we resolve things in our office all the time,” Knudsen told Block Club. “But sometimes you run across somebody who sees a ticket as a cost of continuing their bad behavior. This is a family that didn’t take that cost and really bat an eye.”
Squirrels gather to eat nuts scattered around Lincoln Park. Neighbors say workers hired by the Seid family have regularly distributed nuts in the park, contributing to concerns about rat activity. Credit: Patrick Filbin/Block Club Chicago
That’s been one of the main frustrations for Novak and the rest of the neighborhood.
“When you’re a billionaire and you have a weird hobby and someone tries to stop you, you have complete impunity,” Novak said. “You just triple down because why not? You’ll pay $40,000 in fines. You don’t care.”
Attempts to reach someone with the Seid family were unsuccessful.
## A Feeding Frenzy
Knudsen’s office first became aware of the feeding about three years ago, when Barbara Seid was personally leaving food around the family’s home, he said. Over time, the operation expanded, with people identifying themselves as family employees taking over the feeding.
Since early spring, those workers have been distributing nuts in Lincoln Park, about two or three blocks from the Seids’ home, Knudsen said.
One of the satchel carrying hired men, as seen earlier this spring. Provided/Caroline Novak.
The alderman’s office has sent warning letters and issued civil citations through the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation, but the family has paid the fines without contesting them, he said. The feeding has continued and expanded despite those efforts.
“My hope, to be fully transparent, is that these people are much more afraid of attention than they are of getting ticketed,” Knudsen said.
The alderman’s office also asked the Department of Buildings to investigate whether the activity violated building codes, which could carry higher fines. But because the feeding had moved into the park, the department struggled to identify a building-related violation, Knudsen said.
Now, Knudsen wants the Park District to explore legal action over the damage to public property.
In an Aug. 25 letter addressed to Seid, Knudsen called the situation a final warning, citing repeated violations of Chicago’s municipal code prohibiting the accumulation of garbage or food that could provide food or shelter for rats.
Nuts litter the ground beneath trees in Lincoln Park, where neighbors say rat burrows and trails have become increasingly common amid ongoing wildlife feeding. Credit: Patrick Filbin/Block Club Chicago
The feeding has attracted large numbers of pigeons whose droppings had contributed to a “significant rat infestation.”
The Department of Streets and Sanitation has inspected the property at 334 W. Wisconsin Ave. multiple times over several years and issued multiple warnings and citations, but the feeding continued despite the fines being paid.
Knudsen gave Seid 15 days to permanently stop feeding wildlife on or around the property, remove existing food and feeding equipment, secure garbage in rodent-proof containers and address conditions providing food or shelter for rats.
As of Thursday, none of those stipulations have been met, Knudsen said.
The letter warned that failure to comply could prompt a referral to Chicago police, a formal public-nuisance notice through the Department of Buildings, coordinated inspections by multiple city agencies and further enforcement.
The issue has also proved difficult to resolve because the Park District has jurisdiction over Lincoln Park itself. His office has been working with the Park District and Green City Market to address the problem, but he said the continued feeding has frustrated efforts to control the rats.
A squirrel climbs a tree with a nut in its mouth outside the Seid family’s home at 334 W. Wisconsin St. Neighbors say the family has paid workers to distribute nuts for squirrels around the neighborhood and in Lincoln Park. Credit: Patrick Filbin/Block Club Chicago
“We’re trying to really innovate and make our community” better equipped to deal with rats, Knudsen said, pointing to the ward’s rat-abatement efforts and a rat birth-control pilot program. “At the same time, we have this neighbor who is spending money that is (contributing to) the rat population.”
Green City Market vendors have struggled with the rat activity, while the Park District has faced problems holding camps in the area, Knudsen said.
For Novak, the change has been visible in the park itself. She said she and her family used to picnic there once or twice a week and play baseball nearly every night after moving to the neighborhood in 2023. By last summer, she had started noticing rat holes under trees and trails worn through the grass between them.
“You used to have barefoot babies running around in this part of the park after the farmers market, and now no one wants to do that with their kids,” Novak said.
The home of Barre and Barbara Seid at 334 W. Wisconsin St. has been at the center of complaints about a wildlife-feeding operation that neighbors say has contributed to rat problems in Lincoln Park. Credit: Patrick Filbin/Block Club Chicago
Novak first talked about the issue with WGN. Afterward, she became aware of how the story comes across to the rest of the city.
“There’s a lot of people on the internet saying things like, ‘This is just rich white people mad at other rich white people,’ which is fair,” she said. “They are not wrong. This is very much a first-world problem.”
At the same time, she sees this as an example of a bad neighbor with money having too much power and influence that has become a nuisance to the rest of the neighborhood.
“There’s so many good things you can do with your money, other than buy incredibly expensive nuts and pay people to spread them all over the park and be rude to your neighbors,” Novak said.
For Knudsen, it’s a taxpayer issue at heart.
“A significant amount of taxpayer money goes to these public park spaces,” he said. “When there’s a resident creating an issue on those publicly funded spaces, it’s a huge issue for us.”
As a way to attract attention to the issue, and to pay it forward in some way, Knudsen started a campaign he’s calling “Feed our neighbors not the rats” to support a local hunger nonprofit, Dignity Diner.
The alderman is matching contributions up to $1,000 and says donors had almost reached that amount earlier this week.
Nuts litter the ground beneath trees in Lincoln Park, where neighbors say rat burrows and trails have become increasingly common amid ongoing wildlife feeding. Credit: Patrick Filbin/Block Club Chicago
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