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Is there any hope, or is this war officially over?
Quote:
New York City has been losing the war on rats. A recent estimate put the number of rats at around 2 million, about a quarter of the city’s human population, and any efforts to prune that population down have seen limited success.
Rats continue to infest basements, parks, and apartment buildings, chewing through car wiring and the city’s underground communications, and although reports of rats starting a new plague epidemic may be exaggerated, they do undermine quality of life and cause a lot of costly damage.
But now, an aggressive commitment to rounding up these highly unpopular rodents is finally showing real results thanks to a new strategy dedicated to getting inside the rats’ heads—finding their burrows and targeting them in their nests.
In the below video, Matthew Frye, an urban entomologist at Cornell University’s integrated pest management program discusses the rat problem in NYC.
No stamp food people : buy what u need
Stamp food people : buy everything until there are no more fund for the month
Assuming , you still got plenty of foods in the fridge
If you got $99 remain and tomorrow is November 1 , this means the $99 are not going to transferable to the next month
Are u going to buy grocery ?
Of course , I don't care the food is going to throw away
Further down right in the heart of the UES on Third Avenue a similar problem in front of Maison Kayser between 74th and 75th streets. Mice, lots and lots of mice coming out of the tree beds to dine on the bread and whatever else that place throws out nightly in plastic bags.
New York City's rat population is booming for some of the same reasons other urban areas (such as Paris, France) are having same problems. Warmer winters are allowing rodents to breed all year (rats and mice do not reproduce when temps are below freezing or near that range). Construction of new structures disturbs underground rodent habitat (rats and mice are borrowing animals for the most part by nature and live underground, only coming above to search for food and so forth).
By and large however the largest contributor to the increase of rodents is human activity. Quite frankly many persons are just pigs (throwing trash into streets/leaving it anywhere they please). That and the shift from using metal trash cans with tight fitting lids to plastic bin liners to put out trash. New York City for instance is one of the few world class places that literally throws trash on the streets. Those plastic bags are no match for rodents and you see evidence of that nightly.
Finally NYC's rat population began booming when incineration was outlawed and buildings began having to store trash on site. Residential collection is only every other day M-F with two days (weekends in some areas) without any collection at all. If there is bad weather or holiday it can be three days or more before next collection. That leaves plenty of time for garbage to sit around attracting rodents.
The current homeless/dumpster diving problem isn't helping matters either. Buildings and places may put out rubbish in well sealed plastic bags, but they rarely remain so. They are opened and contents scattered by those digging for food and or God only knows what else. When they are finished not only are the bags left open but often waste is scattered all over.
New York City needs to go back to requiring rubbish to go out in sealed metal or rodent-proof containers. That however would pose a problem. One of the reasons NYC began allowing bags instead of metal cans was due to DSNY. Back in the day you had three men crews; one drove the truck while the other two hauled cans. With trash bags instead of containers you can go with two men because IIRC in theory the bags are easier to sling than having to dump cans.
These days given the high metal theft rate one wonders how long metal cans would last on the streets of NYC anyway. Most likely scrappers would get to them long before DSNY.
The current homeless/dumpster diving problem isn't helping matters either. Buildings and places may put out rubbish in well sealed plastic bags, but they rarely remain so. They are opened and contents scattered by those digging for food and or God only knows what else. When they are finished not only are the bags left open but often waste is scattered all over.
There are "good pickers" who retie bags. Bad pickers "scatter." Horrible pickers slash with boxcutters.
Lately, I'm seeing pickers with boxcutter knives in hand. In a moment, they slice every black trashbag open 4 inches, enough to see if it's mixed with recylcables, and worth rummaging further. That leaves a rat-door open to all that food waste, of course.
Pickers mostly look for glass bottles and small metal cans to redeem for money before the Recycle truck comes around, later that morning.
If you are a resident of NYC who is too "busy", lazy or important to sort, rinse and separate your glass and metal into clear or blue bags (that's the local law..), and instead just tosses everything together into one black bag to dispose, you're part of this rat problem.
If you're a good citizen and put out clear or blue bags for only glass/metal/rigid plastic, you could tie those loosely. What happens is: pickers untie, remove what they can sell, and retie. People who know their block know who's who among the pickers, and yell away the bad ones who scatter. The good ones who re-tie bags are tolerated.
But the ones with boxcutters are kind of scary to yell at and shoo away. I won't. I walk my Akita near them, instead.
Last edited by BrightRabbit; 11-07-2015 at 11:22 AM..
NYC is a great city. Historically great cities of the Western world always had rat problems. London, Venice, Constantinople, Rome, Athens. The cities I mentioned once held economic and it political hegemony across regions and yielded influence. If if nyc did not ever a rat problem, a good chance nothing would be going for this city. A city that attracts lots of people will attract rats.
NYC is a great city. Historically great cities of the Western world always had rat problems. London, Venice, Constantinople, Rome, Athens. The cities I mentioned once held economic and it political hegemony across regions and yielded influence. If if nyc did not ever a rat problem, a good chance nothing would be going for this city. A city that attracts lots of people will attract rats.
New York City like London, Paris, Venice, etc... are all port cities. Where you have water you'll often find rats. Because dock areas are often infested with rats they hitch rides on ships either by getting into cargo or simply using the ropes that secure a ship to docks. Either way rats have been exported from various parts of Europe to others and all over the world via ships.
Modern ships have "rat guards" to keep them from climbing aboard. If a ship was coming from an area where the plague broke out and or cases occurred on board a ship could (and often would) be banned from a harbor until it was fumigated. Some places simply required all incoming ships to be fumigated to control rats.
The black rat arrived on these shores (New York and the rest of USA) same way; via ships. They quickly over took and mostly eliminated the then resident brown rats.
New York City like many others mentioned also has vast numbers of (now) underground streams, ponds and other bodies of water along with swamp/marshland. Again all favourite places for rats. At one time Manhattan had active docks on both the Hudson and East Rivers; as such both the lower west and east sides had rat problems. West Village and Chelsea still do. Bellevue Hospital when first opened was known as "rat hospital" because the buildings were full of them. This is because the place was built on swamp/marsh land and was at one time right on the East river. The land you see west of Bellevue to the FDR Drive was created by landfill just like everything from a block or so behind Trinity Church to the Hudson River.
NYC also like the above mentioned world class cities has entire worlds below ground. Not just subways, sewers and so forth but abandoned tunnels and God only knows what else.
New York City like London, Paris, Venice, etc... are all port cities. Where you have water you'll often find rats. Because dock areas are often infested with rats they hitch rides on ships either by getting into cargo or simply using the ropes that secure a ship to docks. Either way rats have been exported from various parts of Europe to others and all over the world via ships.
Modern ships have "rat guards" to keep them from climbing aboard. If a ship was coming from an area where the plague broke out and or cases occurred on board a ship could (and often would) be banned from a harbor until it was fumigated. Some places simply required all incoming ships to be fumigated to control rats.
The black rat arrived on these shores (New York and the rest of USA) same way; via ships. They quickly over took and mostly eliminated the then resident brown rats.
New York City like many others mentioned also has vast numbers of (now) underground streams, ponds and other bodies of water along with swamp/marshland. Again all favourite places for rats. At one time Manhattan had active docks on both the Hudson and East Rivers; as such both the lower west and east sides had rat problems. West Village and Chelsea still do. Bellevue Hospital when first opened was known as "rat hospital" because the buildings were full of them. This is because the place was built on swamp/marsh land and was at one time right on the East river. The land you see west of Bellevue to the FDR Drive was created by landfill just like everything from a block or so behind Trinity Church to the Hudson River.
NYC also like the above mentioned world class cities has entire worlds below ground. Not just subways, sewers and so forth but abandoned tunnels and God only knows what else.
That's the thing. Even in the past. Industrial , Renaissance Venice, medieval Constantinople, ancient Rome and Athens were all bustling cities. Bustling cities will always have eat problems. If nyc stops becoming a bustling city or loses its position as a bustling city, one can say goodbye to the rat population. Think of it. Would one rather nyc be a bustling global city with rats, or a none bustling city with little to no rats, but with no global impact on world stage?
New York City like London, Paris, Venice, etc... are all port cities. Where you have water you'll often find rats. Because dock areas are often infested with rats they hitch rides on ships either by getting into cargo or simply using the ropes that secure a ship to docks. Either way rats have been exported from various parts of Europe to others and all over the world via ships.
Modern ships have "rat guards" to keep them from climbing aboard. If a ship was coming from an area where the plague broke out and or cases occurred on board a ship could (and often would) be banned from a harbor until it was fumigated. Some places simply required all incoming ships to be fumigated to control rats.
The black rat arrived on these shores (New York and the rest of USA) same way; via ships. They quickly over took and mostly eliminated the then resident brown rats.
New York City like many others mentioned also has vast numbers of (now) underground streams, ponds and other bodies of water along with swamp/marshland. Again all favourite places for rats. At one time Manhattan had active docks on both the Hudson and East Rivers; as such both the lower west and east sides had rat problems. West Village and Chelsea still do. Bellevue Hospital when first opened was known as "rat hospital" because the buildings were full of them. This is because the place was built on swamp/marsh land and was at one time right on the East river. The land you see west of Bellevue to the FDR Drive was created by landfill just like everything from a block or so behind Trinity Church to the Hudson River.
NYC also like the above mentioned world class cities has entire worlds below ground. Not just subways, sewers and so forth but abandoned tunnels and God only knows what else.
Ground Zero for rats is South Street - that whole area is infested. I remember during my college years walking around there some nights and it looked like an NFL game on the sidewalk.
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