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- NYC exterminators' new weapon has eliminated nearly 100% of rats from over 100 burrows (Nov 1, 2023)
- Why Chicago is Losing the War on Rats
- NYC to pay up to $170,000 to hire a rat czar with "swashbuckling attitude" (Dec 1, 2022)
- Chicago is rat capital of U.S. for 8th year in a row (Oct 17, 2022)
- Chicago Retain Crown As Rattiest City In America For 7th Year In A Row (Oct 27, 2021)
- How Alberta Won the Rat Race
- Chicago is the 'rattiest city' in America for the sixth year in a row (Oct 17, 2020)
- Four-Peat: Chicago Tops Orkin’s Top 50 Rattiest Cities List for Fourth Consecutive Year (Oct 28, 2018)
- Growing San Francisco Rat Infestation Creates Huge Demand For Exterminators (Jan 22, 2018)
- To control rat populations, birth control may be more effective than poison (Jan 19, 2018)
- Parisians protest 'genocide' of rats as city battles rodent infestation
- Chilling video of rats in Paris sparks new alarm over rodent invasion (Jan 22, 2018)
- Mouse Carrying Potentially Deadly Virus Discovered in San Diego County (Jan 20, 2018)
- New York City Has Genetically Distinct ‘Uptown’ and ‘Downtown’ Rats (Nov 29, 2017)
- Chicago Tops Orkin Top 50 Rattiest Cities List for Third Time (Oct 16, 2017)
- New Orleans rats are carrying pathogens that could be fatal to dogs (May 5, 2017)
- NYC Rats Are Boldly Jumping in Strollers (Aug 8, 2017)
NYC Rats Are Boldly Jumping in Strollers
Residents and officials are demanding that the city do more to battle the vermin infestations
By Mariana Alfaro | Aug. 8, 2017
Residents and officials are demanding that the city do more to battle the vermin infestations
By Mariana Alfaro | Aug. 8, 2017
Parents are complaining that rats searching for bits of food are jumping into their children’s strollers in Upper West Side parks, and state Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal wants New York City to do something about it.
“The rat problem here is severe,” said Ms. Rosenthal, a Democrat whose district includes the neighborhood. “More money, more efforts need to be directed to the parks here on the Upper West Side.”
The city, she said in an interview, should invest part of its $32 million Neighborhood Rat Reduction plan in her district to help battle the rodents plaguing her constituents. The proposal, introduced by Mayor Bill de Blasio last month, targets the Lower East Side, Chinatown, the East Village, the Bronx’s Grand Concourse area and the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
“Our new plan builds upon our current abatement efforts to target the three most infested neighborhoods in NYC, and will be fully launched by the end of 2017,” a City Hall spokeswoman said Tuesday. “Once this is complete, the city will review the plan’s impact and discuss expansion to other zones.”
Ms. Rosenthal said the city should include Upper West Side parks, noting the hefty rat population presents a public-health risk, especially during the summer. In addition to reports of rats hopping into strollers, Ms. Rosenthal said parents have complained to her office and online about infestations in parks.
A video sent to the West Side Rag blog by a resident showing a large rat scurrying around Elephant Playground in Riverside Park has made the rounds among Upper West Side denizens.
JoAnn Kranis, a resident for more than 40 years, recalled that there were no rats when she would take her older grandchildren to neighborhood parks about three years ago.
“I never saw it before, and now I am in (the parks) again with the younger grandchildren and I see them all over the place,” she said Tuesday at the Diana Ross Playground in Central Park.
As she spoke, several rats roamed around the edges of the playground. Disgusted parents pulled their children away from the rodents who scurried into the bushes. Many snapped photos of the furry invaders.
The mayor’s office said the city runs two Upper West Side rat-reservoir programs, which target rat colonies and conditions that attract vermin at a citywide cost of $2.9 million a year.
Under the program, staff visit infested areas every seven to 10 days until they get rid of the rodents. Such programs have resulted in an 80% to 90% drop in rat activity in the targeted areas, according to the City Hall spokeswoman.
Under the Neighborhood Rat Reduction plan, “smart” trash cans, dry ice and larger fines for illegal garbage dumping have been used to battle the vermin, in addition to other city and Department of Health rat-eradication programs.
According to Ms. Rosenthal’s office, the Upper West Side area can’t use conventional rodenticide to combat rats because it could poison hawks that live in the area.
Ms. Rosenthal, who recently met with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, proposed using dry ice to rid her district of rats. The ice is placed in burrows, suffocating the rodents when it turns to gas. Although dry-ice methods have been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, the city isn’t using them because it must get clearance from the state Environmental Conservation Department.
Upper West Side councilwoman Helen Rosenthal said her office is working with residents, the city’s health department and local parks to address the rat problem. This year, she said, her office has allocated $78,000 toward placing Big Belly garbage bins—which are closed, so rats can’t get in—in playgrounds and other areas in Riverside Park.
“The City is testing dry ice as a possible rodenticide and this looks very promising,” she said Tuesday in an email. “We will explore every avenue until the problem is fully addressed.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nyc-rats-are-boldly-jumping-in-strollers-1502228124?mod=e2fb
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