NYC Struggles With Millions of Rats
By LUKAS I. ALPERT
03:52 PM ET 07/09/00
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) Swarms of foot-long, mangy rats are the stuff of
nightmares, but for residents of the Baruch Houses it's just
another evening in lower Manhattan. Thousands of rats, stirred from their homes by construction,
have swarmed into the public housing development. ``I have to shake my keys and throw rocks at them just to get
out of my building. I can't live like this,'' said resident
Christine Morton, 22.
New York's rat problem extends far beyond the halls of its
public housing. Bill Perkins, chairman of the City Council's Select
Committee on Pest Control, estimates that there are nine rats for
every person in the city - a rat population of about 70 million. ``They're everywhere
- parks, city-owned buildings, they're even showing up in our schools,'' Perkins said.
Perkins blames the growing rat problem on increased
construction, poor garbage disposal and a lack of coordination in
the city's response to rat infestations.
``I've never seen rats like this,'' said Kitty Person, who has
lived at Baruch for 39 years. ``They come out and have a party here
at night time.''
Her neighbors say the rats have besieged the housing development
for months, but it wasn't until news reports about the problem that
the Health Department brought in rat poison.
A Housing Department employee who wouldn't give his name said he
and his co-workers found about 200 dead rats the morning after the
poison was placed.
Shortly after dark that night, the grounds were crawling with
hundreds of the beasts again, brazenly picking their way through
tenants' garbage.
``They are an extraordinarily adaptable and hardy breed,'' said
Dr. Patrick Thomas, curator of mammals at the Bronx Zoo. Norway
rats - the variety most common in New York - were introduced to America by the first European settlers and are
primarily nocturnal, Thomas said. Although some New Yorkers will
swear they've seen rats as large as house cats, Thomas said they
generally don't get heavier than a pound, despite their diets. ``They will consume things that we don't generally consider
food, such as soap or leather,'' Thomas said. ``They are very
comfortable around human activity.''
The danger is the diseases the rats can carry, including
leptospirosis, which can lead to liver failure, and
hantavirus, which can cause respiratory illness.
Department of Health spokeswoman Sandra Mullin said the city
requires landlords to keep their buildings clean, and its pest
control budget has more than doubled since 1997, from $5.5 million
to $13 million.
That does little to calm Kitty Person's nerves. ``Some nights I feel they might just lift my building right up
off the ground,'' she said.
Related Links:
New York City Health Department:
http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/doh
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