RAT Outbreak in Prospect Heights

I blame all the Bruce RATner demolition.

OOoh rats please please pleeeeeeeeease , scurry your nasty ass's over to Underhill and make a home in Carnivore's apartment.

Do whatever you want to that sicko just leave Mrs. C alone. Thank you.

The NYC DOHMH has a plan to eradicate rats from NYC! It sounds like an impossible (and strange task) to me, but they are trying all kinds of control methods. I think they're starting in one area with testing methods and then hope to spread. Maybe the Bronx is first...

I heard this at a talk by a DOH employee or else I would never believe such a thing is being considered possible. Rats are everywhere. But if the program moves here, it might (finally) mean closed garbage cans in the parks and maybe more, since that's a definite source of food around here.

Google NYC rat portal for info

This was in the Daily News

Rat-infested Yards site stirs catcalls
BY Jotham Sederstrom
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2009/04/22/2009-04-22_ratinfested_yards_site_stirs_catcalls.html
Wednesday, April 22nd 2009, 9:37 AM

Here come the rats.

Three weeks after the Daily News spotlighted rodent problems near the Atlantic Yards site, more Prospect Heights residents have come forward with rat tales.

"It's worse now than it's ever been," said Dean Street Block Association member Peter Krashes. "Whenever the work happens, rats are everywhere, eight at a time."

The problem has gotten so bad that a meeting was held on Monday by the block association to determine how best to protect against the scourge of rats and mice.

Residents believe the rats scatter to the streets each time a building is demolished or roadwork occurs. Although Krashes admits rodents are a citywide problem, he said the it has worsened in Prospect Heights, where he has lived since 2001, in the last year.

At least 28 buildings have been demolished by developer Forest City Ratner since 2005 in a bid to build 16 towers and a new arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team.

Since last year, the city Health Department has conducted 90 rodent inspections and baited 68 times within the 10-square-block area of the Yards site, according to city records.

Doug Derryberry, who has lived in a Dean St. building not owned by Ratner since 2005, said the rodent population appeared to multiply around his home last year.

"Generally it's at night or early in the morning when you see them scurrying to and from buildings," said Derryberry. "There's just been a marked increase in rat sightings along the street but also in the common area of our building."

"We're convinced it's because of the demolition," he added.

A Forest City Ratner spokesman said all property owned by the developer is baited before being razed and the entire project site is routinely checked for illegal dumping.

"The properties [Ratner] controls today are by far cleaner than they were when the developer acquired them," said Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco, who suggested other property owners near the site are to blame for the increase in rodents.

"This site has long had problems with rodents because of abandoned buildings, illegal dumping and exposed garbage," said DePlasco. "Those conditions have been corrected on the properties since purchased by the Atlantic Yards developer."