N.Y.C. Rats: They’re in the Park, on Your Block and Even at Your Table

November 9, 2021 8:15 AM

There have been 15 cases this year — the most since at least 2006 — of leptospirosis, which can cause serious liver and kidney damage and, in the city, typically spreads via rat urine. New York’s most recent anti-rat initiative, a $32 million program in 2017, targeted what Mayor Bill de Blasio said were the three most infested parts of the city: the Grand Concourse area of the Bronx; Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn; and a section of Manhattan encompassing the East Village, the Lower East Side and Chinatown.
posted by folklore724 (12 comments total)

The most frustrating thing about rats in NYC is that everyone knows what the answer is: replace on-street parking spots with shared trash receptacles so that trash doesn't get piled overnight in bags on the sidewalk. But that would involve making it harder to park on the street for free, so.
posted by goingonit at 9:41 AM on November 9, 2021 [8 favorites]

But whose building should we put the shared receptacle for our block in front of? I pick, at complete random... your house! (Which is to say that I like the idea but there's a lot of details to address.)

NYC Sanitation is only responsible for residential pickup; the majority of food waste comes from restaurants and markets, which use commercial haulers, a traditionally mob-dominated industry. Requiring commercial properties that generate organic waste to use sealed containers curbside seems like a low-cost way of making a dent, but absent a functioning municipal enforcement apparatus I can't imagine how we'd make that stick.
posted by phooky at 10:00 AM on November 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

Yeah, restaurants are their own can of worms (barrel of rats?) but in both cases the question is what is an accessible-to-trucks but inaccessible-to-rats spot where the waste can await pickup. In cities where waste is collected in shared receptacles, you save a TON of labor because the sanitation workers don't have to lift individual bags from the street, to the point that perhaps you could even start expanding DSNY collection to retailers without extra labor cost...ah, a person can dream...

Incidentally, one answer to "whose house does the dumpster go in front of?" is to put it underground...
posted by goingonit at 10:52 AM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

But whose building should we put the shared receptacle for our block in front of? I pick, at complete random... your house! (Which is to say that I like the idea but there's a lot of details to address.)

People will obviously NIMBY anything, but under the current system there is trash in front of everyone's house. Put an actual secure container mid-block and let people cry about it while we all enjoy fewer rats.

I have a street-facing 2nd floor window and my cat loves the rats. My landlord installed some bright security lights recently and that's even better. Rat TV all night long.
posted by Mavri at 1:50 PM on November 9, 2021 [6 favorites]

you save a TON of labor because the sanitation workers don't have to lift individual bags from the street

The sanitation union is strong; bags lifted from the street require human labor: shared receptacles can be automatically emptied. There’s secondary effects other than just parking for that.
posted by corb at 2:02 PM on November 9, 2021 [1 favorite]

Wait. Not to sound like a West Coast rube over here but... you don't have dumpsters in New York, you just...put bags of trash out on the street?! That is amazing and wild and, yeah, rat party-tastic.

Um. Whose house do you put the wheelie bins and dumpsters in front of? How about, look at literally every other city with developed infrastructure and just...copy us? Why is it not that way there? (I see the comment on the mob dominated industry, which is interesting but can't be the whole picture, can it?)
posted by Grim Fridge at 3:36 PM on November 9, 2021 [3 favorites]

Dog owners, make sure you get the optional lepto vaccine for them! It's often considered unnecessary (even by some vets) for city dogs but as this article shows, it exists in the city too and it's a really nasty disease for them to get.
posted by randomnity at 3:40 PM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'm also having trouble wrapping my mind around "just throw the trash on the ground" as a preferred solution over "put the trash in a trash can instead" but everything about that city seems unbelievable to me. Also don't see how trash bags on the streets is something businesses are cool with, but not a civil place for it? AFAIK too all businesses right now are basically plastered all around with all sorts of tacky scaffolding things anyway. Can't imagine a trash can really sticking out with all the constructiony looking junk around as it is.
posted by GoblinHoney at 5:03 PM on November 9, 2021 [2 favorites]

Wait. Not to sound like a West Coast rube over here but... you don't have dumpsters in New York, you just...put bags of trash out on the street?! That is amazing and wild and, yeah, rat party-tastic.

Part of the reason is that NYC has very few alleys, where a lot of trash usually goes.
posted by Drowsy Philosopher at 6:08 PM on November 9, 2021 [4 favorites]

When I lived in an apartment building in downtown San Francisco, we had plastic wheeled bins inside the building, in the basement. Sanitation workers had the key and would come in and get the bins, empty them, and put them back. Pickup was 7 days/week.
posted by ryanrs at 2:02 PM on November 10, 2021

Does anyone know anything about the Clean Curbs program? It is a pilot program where BIDs and such can apply to have trash enclosures located in parking spaces. I haven't found any information about adoption rates, though.
posted by mosst at 7:52 AM on November 11, 2021

Clean Curbs never launched due to COVID budget cuts (also maaaaaybe due to Kathryn Garcia taking emergency control of NYCHA and then running for mayor).
posted by goingonit at 8:35 AM on November 11, 2021