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A Detested Emblem of Decay Is Scurrying Back. Ah, Rats!
August 7, 2003
By COREY KILGANNON
Even for New York City, it was a bizarre specter: a
firehouse closed because it had been taken over by rats.
They had invaded the firefighters' kitchen and lounge and
the chief's office, and seemed only to grow in number and
boldness, despite copious use of rat poison. On Tuesday,
the city temporarily relocated the firefighters and ordered
that the house be gutted and rebuilt.
But many residents, exterminators and politicians believe
that the infested firehouse in Jamaica, Queens, is only
part of a much larger citywide rat problem.
The number of rat complaints received by the city has
sharply increased lately. And city officials and
exterminators say a combination of circumstances - from an
underfinanced government abatement program to reduced
recycling pickups to heavy rainfall - seem to have created
a boom time for rats in the city.
If, as these people say, the New York rat problem has
returned, city health officials say it is as much an image
problem as an infestation problem. That scurrying symbol of
urban decay, akin to the mugger, the squeegee man or
curbside piles of trash, is one the city and Mayor Michael
R. Bloomberg does surely not need.
"The rat infestation is very significant, and Mayor
Bloomberg is not taking it as serious as he should be,"
said Councilwoman Christine Quinn, a Democrat who
represents part of Lower Manhattan and the chairwoman of
the City Council's Health Committee.
Councilwoman Quinn said that Mr. Bloomberg "inherited the
problem" from Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. "But he still has
to address it aggressively," she said.
She added: "The picture of rats taking over a firehouse on
the national-international news takes you right back to
1970's. Once one tourist in Iowa sees it, you have a
thousand of them canceling their plane tickets to New
York."
The city has noted a spike in rat infestation complaints
lately, with almost 21,000 for the fiscal year 2003,
compared with about 16,000 for fiscal year 2002.
"Complaints have gone up, but we look at that as a positive
thing, because more people know how to contact us now,"
said James H. Gibson, assistant commissioner for Veterinary
and Pest Control Services of the city's Department of
Health.
But Mr. Gibson said that, except for certain blighted
sections of the city, the rat problem in New York had
improved.
"It's a difficult thing to assess," he said. "Certain
communities in some rare cases have gotten worse, but over
all it's gotten better. There are persistent problems in
poorer neighborhoods, where more crumbling housing
infrastructure provides harborage for rodents. Landlords
there often do not properly maintain their properties or
provide things like trash cans with covers."
Mr. Gibson said the number of inspections and
exterminations conducted by the department had increased in
recent years.
City spending on rodent control has remained roughly the
same over the past three years, he said. For the fiscal
year 2003, it was about $13 million.
"We could use more resources and personnel," he said. "We
have a city of 8.1 million people and roughly 30 rodent
inspectors. If we had more inspectors, we could be more
aggressive."
Yesterday, the city's fire commissioner, Nicholas
Scoppetta, played down claims from the firefighters' union
that many firehouses are similarly infested.
"Rats are a fact of life in New York City," he said.
Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg was asked by reporters about the
firehouse rat problem after touring the Kaufman Astoria
Studio in Queens with Whoopi Goldberg, the star and
executive producer of a new sitcom there. Ms. Goldberg
piped up. "You should get some cats," she said.
"I think these are New York rats," the mayor responded."
Ms. Goldberg considered that and said, "You need those
Ninja cats."
Gil Bloom, who owns Standard Exterminating in Astoria, said
the city's rat population had "exploded" over the past
couple of years because of three things. "Food, water and
shelter," he said yesterday on 21st Street in Queens.
He pointed to a pile of trash bags on the sidewalk next to
some large puddles, then to his client's front yard, where
rats had nested. "This is all the rats need," Mr. Bloom
said.
"With that," he said, "two rats today can produce two to
three hundred in one year."
His son, Josh Bloom, 19, put rat poison pellets the size of
golf balls in a small plastic trap in the yard.
"The city only makes it a priority when it becomes a
problem, and that's too late," said Gil Bloom, president of
the New York State Pest Management Association. "You have
to be preventative, not reactive."
The need for constant vigilance is apparent at the
Community Food Resource Center on West 116th Street, a soup
kitchen in Harlem next to a vacant lot. It has been waging
a war with the rats that somehow keep finding their way
into the building.
The center has plugged holes in the building, repaved the
crumbling sidewalk and increased its extermination budget
to $4,000 a year, said Hiram Bonner, program director for
the group's Community Kitchen program.
"It's a battle we're constantly fighting," he said
yesterday as he walked through the trash-strewn lot. "You
can see them scurrying around here in the evening. They
burrow under the sidewalk and pop up in the tree pits and
scare the heck out of our clients."
Ron West, who owns the 4rdms Pest Control Systems in
Harlem, said that the city could do more to fight rat
infestation in vacant lots and buildings.
"Five years ago, the city was doing a lot of baiting, but
now you really have to scream loud if you want them to help
out," he said. "The wealthier neighborhoods have more
political clout. But here, someone's got to get a rat bite
and then call the news and show pictures. I know the city
has fiscal problems, but the rats have been exploding all
over the place."
Mr. Gibson said that the Health Department sends inspectors
to identify infested areas after complaints from the
public. If the landlord fails to clear the building of
rats, he is fined and often ordered to reimburse the city
for doing it.
Mr. Gibson said the city's Health Department had been
conducting a strict rodent abatement pilot program in the
Bushwick section of Brooklyn, which will be used as a model
for programs to be conducted in areas including Chinatown,
East Harlem, the South Bronx and Manhattan Valley, near the
northwestern corner of Central Park.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/nyregion/07RATS.html?ex=1061283804&ei=1&en=1397639bd8588ff6
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