A trip to the post office just became even more dreadful than usual! NY1 reports that residents of Brevoort East in Greenwich Village are complaining about rodent bites in their packages coming from their local Cooper Station Post Office on 4th Avenue.
This town is crawling with mice and rats and terrifying mutant cockroaches, so it's funny WABC "Eyewitness News" is so shocked to find the city school system has a bit of a rodent problem. The fact that school lunch is unappetizing isn't exactly flashing-siren news, but this is revolting nonetheless: Records obtained through Freedom of Information show that 545 school cafeterias had one or more critical health violations, and about one-third of those violations were for mice and mice droppings. Perhaps student Jose Rodriguez said it best: "Nasty. It's disgusting, but it's really not surprising."
Back in 2003 Mayor Bloomberg declared: "Our administration has zero tolerance for rats. And I've got one message today, `City to rats: Drop Dead.'" But there are still rats running rampant, even in this city's pizza trucks... even at Peter Luger. So maybe the focus should be on dead rats — they're just easier to capture — especially if someone were to create a dead rat map.
It's been a while since we've had any quality rat rodeo video, so get some popcorn (or not) and enjoy this footage of big fat rats feasting in a Vinny Vincenz Pizza Truck parked in Chelsea. It's actually kind of cute how pumped these rats are about being alone in the truck, and, to be fair, it is pretty good pizza... which we will never eat again.
After investigating reports from missionaries about a giant plant that subsists on whole rats, British botanists have announced the discovery of a species of rodent-eating plant on Mount Victoria in the Philippines. The giant pitcher plant, which is believed to be the world's largest meat-eating shrub, seduces rodents into its slipper-shaped mouth and dissolves them with acid-like enzymes. It can grow a stem more than 4ft long and has been named "Nepenthes attenboroughii" after wildlife broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. Stewart McPherson and former Cambridge University botanist Alastair Robinson made their discovery during an expedition in 2007, but have only just described the killer shrub after completing a study of all 120 species of pitcher plant. Below, some video of the rat-hungry attenborough at mealtime:
Rats are still keeping it real in the Bronx, where a two-year-old girl was taken to the hospital with five rodent bites after her mother heard her screaming in her crib. Jonnique McKinney tells the Daily News, "She was sleeping in her bed and she woke up screaming." Exterminators had plugged up the radiator with steel wool in her Clay Avenue apartment, but nothing can stop a hungry rat with an appetite for human babies. While hitting the Google machine for this story, we learned about a horrific incident that happened last month in Louisiana, where an infant girl was found dead in her crib after rats ate away at her face and limbs, then left bloody rodent footprints all over her sheets. Anyway! McKinney filed a lawsuit against her building owner last year, when her daughter was bitten, but it's only come to light now because the landlord sued the exterminator this week. Still, aren't you glad you finally know about all this? Sweet dreams!
The boss is never going to believe this one: A report just came in over the police scanners about an "unusual occurrence" in a parking lot at East 128th Street between Park and Lex, where police have been summoned because "people are unable to get to their cars due to 10-15 very large rats in the parking lot." And so it begins; the day we've all dreaded when a master race of rats form organized battalions to take over the city once and for all. Well, Gothamist, for one, welcomes our new rodent overlords, and we look forward to seeing them show the current administration how real rats run a city. Viva la Rat!
Last week's Page Six item about the rats of Morton Street terrorizing Greenwich Village residents (including Gisele Bundchen!) prompted this Fox 5 report. Aside from choice quotes like "They are ruling the streets," "One night, I saw a rat come across the street, catch a mouse and eat it. It was disgusting. There are rats coming across the street, they're having parties in the street," and "They are like the big, giant disgusting Secret of NIMH rats," neighbors also tells Fox 5, the rats are headquartered at 42 Morton Street: "Acting on complaints, the city Health Department sent out the rat patrol in full force. Inspectors found rat droppings inside the building and told the owner to clean it up or else." Ew (and video is after the jump). Also, per the city, property owners are responsible for keeping rat-free environments while tenants are required to store their garbage properly.
The Atlantic Yards rat problem appears to be getting worse according to neighbors with a block association having held a meeting on how to combat the pestering rodents just this week. One Prospect Heights resident who was there told the News, "It's worse now than it's ever been. Whenever the work happens, rats are everywhere, eight at a time." The News first reported a couple weeks back on the rats and the sorry state of the demolition site, including women being harassed near the Yards at night; today's headline is "Rat-infested Yard Site Stirs Cat Calls." A spokesman for Bruce Ratner's properties naturally blamed the rat infestation on the sorry state of the site before the developer came in and "corrected the problems." If the area around the stalled project follows the course laid out in Life After People, expect the rats to return to the wild in the next few months, only to be replaced by the arrival of wolves.
Several NYU dining halls were just points away from being shut down by the Health Department after inspections, and the sanitary conditions have greatly deteriorated at the 13 cafeterias listed on the DOH website. The only dining hall that improved was the Hayden Dining Hall, but that's not saying much: It only dropped from 27 violation points to 26—28 is the dirty magic number that gets an eatery shut down. It seems the big problem is vermin, which multiplied because of "the severity of construction in and around NYU, which creates movement and migrations," says Director of Dining Services Owen Moor. Speaking to the Washington Square News, one cafeteria worker was more blunt: "The building is infested with rats, so there isn’t much we can do personally about that." Senior Anisha Noble sums up the student perspective: "That is disgusting." Totally. It's a miracle the students who recently occupied the Kimmel Building cafeteria survived without having their stomachs pumped: Not only did the dining hall tie for second-worst (24 points), but it was also cited for serving food with artificial trans-fat. No wonder they were so outraged!
The subway system is trying to fight back against the seemingly invincible: No, not inevitable fare hikes or services, but the population of rats that live underground and thrive on garbage found on the platforms or in subway tracks. The Post reports that NYC Transit is testing out a "roach motel-like trap" at the Franklin Street 1 station: "Once the rodents get in, they're not supposed to get out and will have nothing to eat but the poison baits inside." Before the trap was set, a "rat census" was taken before and another will be taken afterwards to see whether the trap really did work (although finding rat carcasses in the trap might be a clue). The Department of Health's rat expert Bobby Corrigan will be monitoring the pilot and other stations will be getting the traps, too. We guess rat motels were more sensible than finding really enormous tom cats or hawks to roam the subways.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development spent more than $4 million this year to maintain 113 buildings that have been all but abandoned by their landlords. These landlords are required to reimburse taxpayers for the work, but until then the city places a lien on the properties, most of which are located in Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Prospect Heights and East New York. Yet despite the emergency repairs, conditions at some of these residences are still utterly appalling. Angelica Jimenez of Bushwick tells the Daily News, "Every night, we have rats in my apartment—big ones! They walk all over the kitchen and that's not nice. I kill them. I have no choice, I can't afford to move." City Councilwoman Diana Reyna sees a pattern, and speculates that landlords in Bushwick are neglecting repairs to drive out low-income residents, thus enabling them to cash in on the neighborhood's proximity to trendy Williamsburg by renting to hipsters.
East Village residents packed a community forum Wednesday night to vent about a surge in the local rat population. City Councilmember Rosie Mendez, who co-hosted the meeting, declared that rats were "the largest growing population in the East Village." And Community Board 3 manager Susan Stetzer deemed the rat boom a "crisis...This year we didn’t even have the little Halloween parade in Tompkins Square Park for the kids because of all the rats." According to the Villager, Rick Simeone, director of pest-control services for the Health Department, says they stopped putting poison in the park due to concerns that hawks, squirrels or dogs would eat it. Instead, the city is promising to crack down on bars and restaurants who don't manage their trash properly. Meanwhile, gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhoods are crawling with rats, too!
"People have seen them sitting on benches," says Andrew Albert, an MTA board member and chair of the NYC Transit Riders Council. "From what riders have told us, they appear to be getting bolder." That's the subway rat population he's talking about, which many commuters say is surging, at least according to an amNY article that's teeming with great quotes. "Next thing you know the doors are going to open and one is going to come on the train with us," one exterminator predicts.
The Observer spends a fruitful day palling around with exterminator Stephen Ceol, who has seen business boom ever since the rat rodeo sparked a city-wide Health Department crackdown on restaurants. It’s a fun read. “[Ceol] set out a number of baitless, mechanical traps, which instead lure vermin simply by the size of their tiny entryways. ‘They’re naturally comfortable going into a hole. It spins them around and they can’t get out. It works great because it’s a repeater. You catch so many of them. I’ve had five live ones in there at one time.’ What happens to the captured critters? ‘I boil ’em and throw ’em out. That’s what I have to do… I had one client; I guess their kitchen guys were taking count. Thirty-two rats were killed—32!’”
Who doesn't enjoy a peaceful lunch in Central Park? The above illustration is succinct in showing the ornithological, et al, breakdown of just who's getting leftovers. From pigeon to rat, there are two-winged and four-legged creatures savoring every dropped crumb in the park -- and they're just as pushy as some human New Yorkers when it comes to their lunch break.
The common rule of thumb is that there are eight or nine rats for every human being in New York City, which means a scurrying verminous population of 64-72 million lurking in walls, below streets, in trash cans, and sometimes in plain sight. Being a rat catcher or, better yet, a rat exterminator is a profession that will never end, and the NY Times spoke to some exterminators about the unwinnable battle.
Mr. Cruz, who started working as an exterminator in 1996, opened his business five years ago, and in his opinion, there is a difference between Manhattan and Brooklyn rodents. “Manhattan rats look like cats, not like rats,” Mr. Cruz said. “Brooklyn rats look like rats.”Continue reading "A Plague Upon All Our Houses: Rats"
For the second time in as many years, the famous Stage Deli in Manhattan was shuttered by the Dept. of Health after inspections found the restaurant infested with vermin. The Times Square institution was last closed in mid-2006 after it accrued too many points during a health inspection (points are for violations and a score above 28 is a failure.) As reported in The New York Times, the DOH inspected the Stage last Wednesday and assigned it a failing score. The deli was allowed to remain open while it corrected major violations, but a subsequent inspection 48 hours later still resulted in insufficient cleanliness.
Cats in delis: they are ubiquitous, loved, objected to, necessary, and illegal. City inspectors are constantly on the prowl to ferret out deli felines, but deli owners say they are necessary fixtures to keep their businesses free of pests like mice, rats, and roaches. The New York Times has a story today on the ongoing battle between the city and the cats that are the sentinels of its delis--feline samurai who serve their masters in return for food, shelter, and the occasional scratch behind the ears.
To store owners, the services of cats are indispensable in a city where the rodent problem is serious enough to be documented in a still popular two-minute video clip on YouTube from late February (youtube.com/watch?v=su0U37w2tws) of rats running amok in a KFC/Taco Bell in Greenwich Village. Store-dwelling cats are so common that there is a Web site, workingclasscats.com, dedicated to telling their tales.
It seems like just yesterday that the Brooklyn Bridge was being blown up by Hollywood. How time flies. I Am Legend, the movie for which this post-apocalyptic craziness occurred, is opening today (get your promotional survivor kit ready!). In the 100 minutes of watching it, you'll meet three main characters: Manhattan, Sam the dog, and Will Smith ("Robert Neville"). The combination is apparently a winning one, as the reviews have been frighteningly positive...it will scare you, and it will especially scare New Yorkers (particularly if those future gas prices are accurate). You can watch the 3-minute opening scene, here.
Riders were stranded on the platform and in subway cars when a Brooklyn-bound L train stalled under the East River just after 8PM. Reader tokyohanna, who took this photograph of people waiting, wrote at the time, "There is a train stalled between first and Bedford. They stopped trains in both directions. A sea of people is on the platform and we can barely walk." amNew York reports that the train had a mechanical failure close...
Preempt some of the holiday lunacy by scooping up some of these food-oriented gift items. We found five gifts that are perfect for someone who loves to cook or who maybe just appreciates food a bit more than your average eater. All these items are under $50, and all available online. Olive Wood Mortar and Pestle from Sur La Table. Great for making guacamole, pesto or grinding up spices. Also looks lovely on your kitchen...
Forget the new JJ Abrams film about a fictional monster attacking New York...the Mulberry Street monster is a real-life city menace: the rat! Many rats actually, like more rats than they have at Peter Luger and Da Silvano's...combined! The movie, which came out last year, is summarized as follows: "a deadly infection breaks out in Manhattan, causing humans to devolve into blood-thirsty rat creatures. Six recently evicted tenants must survive the night and protect their...
City Councilman Simcha Felder's proposed legislation to fine people $1,000 for feeding pigeons has struck a nerve. Felder and other elected officials claim that pigeons' poop is harmful to New Yorkers and, therefore, various ways to limit pigeons' eating and procreating should be explored. But some pigeon lovers are unhappy with the level of vitriol directed at the city's unofficial bird. Hence the video from Animaniacs, "Goodfeathers" (it's 10 minutes, so settle in to...
Citing the unsightly damage that pigeon poop does to the city, City Council Member Simcha Felder announced a bill proposal to fine people $1000 for feeding pigeons. Some of Felder's key remarks and findings: "Stop feeding pigeons!" "If people like pigeons... feed [them] in your house and let them crap all over the place in your living room." A pigeon creates about 25 pounds of poop annually. "[The pigeons] may go elsewhere. Let them...
The elements that have made City Hall Park so attractive to New York's humans have also made the area hospitable to the city's rodent population--so much so that the park has become overrun with rats, who don't seem to mind people company as much as people mind rat company. Regardless of the time of day or the number of people congregating there, rats--lots and lots of them--have made City Hall park their home. The New...
Reuters is reporting that today New York was named "the U.S. city most vulnerable to a rat attack as warmer weather and aging infrastructure fuels rodent populations across the United States." At least we don't have to worry about earthquakes (yet)?
We've never been all that intrigued by Burning Man, but Limewire has some great photos of the recent annual desert voyage that make it look more appealing than appalling.
Vynl, 507 Columbus AvenueOn three separate nights cameras caught the critters feasting "on scraps that were left on the dirty kitchen floor and climbing over crates of glassware" at Da Silvano's (pictured top left). The owner there said the problem was caused by nearby construction and recent renovations and claimed he will be throwing out everything edible in the restaurant and starting fresh. Ah, not even the celeb hot spots can escape the wrath of roaches and rodents.
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