While people are in quarantine, rats flooded New York: how the city is solving the problem

Huge rats filled Central Park and the Upper West Side. The problem with the growth of the rat population in New York is so obvious that the city even launched a public Rat Academy course. It trains pest control specialists. What the townspeople themselves say about this problem, the edition told New York Post.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, school closures and business closures, New York is flooded with rats. They run the streets, nest in trees, and gnaw on car engine wires, which cost car owners thousands of dollars to repair.

The number of complaints about rats in the city is growing. In this regard, 311 calls have been received on hotline 12 since the beginning of the year, which is a third more than in the entire 632 (2019 calls).

Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal has partnered with the City Department of Health to launch the Rat Academy community training course. The three-hour training was broadcast live to all New Yorkers. Business owners, landlords, homeowners, and many more could learn useful information from this training. Similar trainings began to be held in the city about 10 years ago. The three-day course is now held twice a year - once in the spring and once in the fall. You can learn more about it on this site.

Gail Dubov earned her Ph.D. from the Rat Academy after taking a couple of classes. "Rats are cunning," she said with authority, "and they are smart."

Dozens of Upper West Side residents posted on Facebook that they had personally seen rats in their area. Melanie Sloan, mother of actress Scarlett Johansson, also shared her observations. “Central Park is occupied by huge, fat rats,” Sloane wrote. "I saw the man on the bench trying unsuccessfully to drive them away from him."

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Not a day goes by that New Yorker Amanda Levine doesn't see at least one rat. She sprays her Jeep Grand Cherokee with a mixture of cinnamon, water and peppermint oil, a smell that repels rats.

Levin believes that the rat population on the Upper West Side has grown due to outdoor dining, poor street cleaning and an increase in homelessness. But the main cause of the problem is garbage, which is not removed often enough, as a result of which the bins are overfilled, and waste bags accumulate on the roadsides near supermarkets.

In New York, the Department of Sanitation is responsible for both street cleaning and garbage collection. Spokesman Joshua Goodman said the department is committed to keeping the city clean and reducing the rat population. “Only when residents, business people and city officials work together can we solve a problem that is as old as New York City itself,” Goodman said.

But Levin believes that the city's mayor, Bill de Blasio, is to blame for the problem. She says that in the 20 years that she has lived in this quarter, the rats have not been as plump as they are today.

She is also convinced that the mayor intends to liquidate the Department of Sanitation, and accused him of embezzlement. “He turned this city into a real hole,” Levin says.

The mayor's office said that they have no intention of liquidating the Department of Public Utilities. "I can't imagine how anyone could get that impression," said Bill de Blasio spokesman Mitch Schwartz.

Another New Yorker, Dalia Schwalb, is in trouble. She was standing at a subway stop near 96th Street last Sunday evening when she was surrounded by a pack of 10-15 rats. “We used to see rats on the rails,” she said. “Now they have literally become part of the area. They have to pay the rent. "