The ground was “crawling with rats” that took over a back alleyway in a Fenway neighborhood, according to officials from the city’s inspectional service department.

“It was a nightmare,” said John Meaney, ISD’s director of environmental services. “Rats were jumping around like it was monkey bars. They were all over the place.”

Congestion wise, it’s the worst that Meaney has seen in a long while, he said.

In most instances, the vile rodents will run when humans come around, but when Meaney and workers from ISD responded to complaints on Wednesday night and showed up at an apartment building on Hemenway Street, he said the long-tailed rats were crawling over his feet.

“They weren’t running. I was running!” he said. “It’s an over population… So far, the city put out traps and killed 14 rats.”

On Thursday, ISD issued violation notices to two properties, the one on Hemenway Street and another on Haviland Street. The buildings abut each other in the clustered neighborhood.

Meaney said the rats were not inside the building, but had created hundreds of burrows outside near trash cans. The holes could be seen in the ground and the smell of trash emanated from the alleyway on Thursday afternoon.

Both apartment buildings are close by to Berklee College of Music and Northeastern University, where thousands of students are expected to return to in just a few weeks.

If the building owners don’t comply with recommendations from the city and clean up the sites, they could be fined up to $300 a day from the housing court. Code violations for the grass and trash could cost $50 a day, as well.

Owners get a 24-hour notice prior to fines going into place, according to officials.

Meaney said two weeks ago, ISD started receiving complaints about the rats coming out from the alley behind the Hemenway apartment building.

“The population got so extensive, they started going to the outside community,” said Meaney.

Meaney said from tail-to-nose, the foot-long rodents were running around in packs of five or six.

A host of problems on the properties led to the “over population,” according to officials.

A mild winter didn’t kill off as many of the creatures as a more frigid season would, and an abundance of unkempt trash and inattentiveness to the rat holes in the little neighborhood spot led to the infestation.

But the problem can be reversed, said Meaney.

“If [the landowners] all step up and keep on top of it, and make changes to landscape it could be under control in a week or so,” he said.

The number of rodents will also take a dive as early as Thursday night, when exterminators are expected to blast the area.

“For this to go unattended for so long is unacceptable,” said Meaney. “Communication is key and that’s what was missing here.”