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Rat Explosion Has Harlem Ready To Lock And Load
By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 1, 2011
Modified Apr 1, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 1, 2011
Modified Apr 1, 2011
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The city Health Department has laid off 63 workers on its Pest Control team—75 percent of the staff. And that has elected officials and some New Yorkers filled with dread about a possible rat "crisis." If what we're experiencing now—with rats crawling out of toilet bowls and scurrying across our sleeping faces in the subway—doesn't qualify as a crisis, we can't wait to see how this devolves further. Rats chartering party buses to take them to the fish market in Hunts Point? Stroller-pushing rats blocking bike lanes? But which ever way this deteriorates, Harlem is going to be ready.
"They’re bigger than kittens. We’re going to have to get BB guns," Alicia Barksdale, who heads her Harlem building’s tenants association, tells amNY. The paper reports that 311 received about 10,500 rodent complaints in 2010, up more than 5 percent from 2009. And so far this year, complaints are up 9 percent compared to the same period a year ago.
"There’s going to be a major epidemic during the summer with the rodents," predicts Rosemarie Vasquez, a former city pest control aide. Of course, the Health Department insists the layoffs have no effect on its rat control duties, and are merely the result of a restructuring of the way they handle rats. Now city vermin inspectors are canvassing whole neighborhoods simultaneously and then returning every eight to 12 months.
But the longer rats live the greater threat they pose; as Joseph Mitchell wrote, "Rats that survive to the age of four are the wisest and most cynical beasts on earth. I believe some of them can read." In addition to stocking up on guns, Harlem needs to add book burnings to the list.
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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