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Subscribe to RSSResidents on Manhattan's Upper West Side are fighting a rat problem and posting signs to warn pedestrians. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
It’s a common sight in New York: rats scurrying across subway tracks, onto dimly-lit streets, and into sewers. And while New Yorkers aren't happy about sharing their city with rodents, it's something that, with experience, they learn to shrug off.
One Manhattan resident, however, is fed up with it.
Joseph Bolanos, president of the West 76th Street Block Association, decided to call attention to the problem by installing eye-catching signs on Wednesday: fake traffic-crossing signs just for the rats.
The diamond-shaped plastic signs prominently feature the words “RAT XING” with a big black rat at the center. Bolanos hung the signs with double-sided tape around his Upper West Side neighborhood.
NBC New York
Joseph Bolanos, president of the West 76th Street Block Association, hangs up a rat-crossing sign in his neighborhood on the Upper West Side in Manhattan.
The move may be a bit flippant, but Bolanos said he thinks the signs could bring attention to the issue plaguing his streets.
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“A woman in the building next door said she could hear the rats outside screaming and screeching,” Bolanos told NBC News on Thursday. “I’ve heard neighbors thinking someone got attacked outside because they would hear shrieks, but it was just people who were passing by running with the fear of God in them from all of the rats frolicking like it’s Cirque du Soleil.”
The rat problem, residents said, stems from a construction site where workers have reportedly been leaving trash from their lunch out, underneath a tarp overnight, NBCNewYork.com reported.
“You’re putting a buffet out for them for 12 hours,” Bolanos said, adding that the rats are “really destroying [residents’] quality of life.”
Bolanos said so far, he has put up three signs on posts along a 50-foot radius from the construction site. But he plans to post more.
“I designed them. I laminated them. And they’re going to be bigger next week,” Bolanos said. “Believe it or not, they’ve already started working because when people see them, they cross the ‘rat zone’ altogether.”
But ultimately, Bolanos said, the rat infestation remains the city’s responsibility.
“I’d like to see if the city is going to do anything. Let’s see in the next 10 days if the city has an answer.”
Bolanos suggested adjusting the city’s trash pick-up guidelines as a means of cutting down on the amount of time that rats have to feed on the trash laying around. He also said he wants residents to wait until two hours before pick-up to put garbage outside.
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Bolanos even helped organize a mid-August training session for supers, building owners, tenants and others on the Upper West Side concerned with how to better fight the critters. The “Rat Academy” was instructed by a city health department official, Caroline Bragdon, who told attendees where to look for rats’ nests and how to plug holes that might let the vermin into buildings.
New York City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who also helped organize the rat management training, had reportedly secured $50,000 to pay for trash cans with built-in compactors that would be placed around the 76th Street block.
It was during the Rat Academy that Bolanos first mentioned he would hang up the rat-crossing signs, which he said will serve as a warning to pedestrians that they may encounter dozens of rats scurrying by.
Rats aren't a new concern for residents of the West 76th Street area. A report from an association meeting in late May said a professional exterminator was coming to the neighborhood twice a month to help control the rodent population.
View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.
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Leave a Comment:
I'll take a rat over a hipster any day of the week...
I believe the RAT problem is bigger in Washington D.C. than it is in New York. They are called DemocRATS.
LOL! Great post ozmosis.
NO, ozie is NOT funny ... good try though. Now the Rat Crossing Sign .... that's funny.
@ ozmosis No worse than RATpublicans
@Ycaintuseait5-3858621. That is actually RepubliCANS. Go back to school and get your spelling correct. Starting at first grade might help.
so, the mayor of NY focuses on limiting the size of soda's, but not on the RAT Problem?
I guess he thinks that a soda is more dangerous than a Rat, or he's probably just used to be dealing with DemocRATS!!!! and he thinks that is safe.
If sodas are so dangerous, maybe they should leave Big Gulps out for the rats.
5/8 of you are retarded, morons, and not one bit funny.
Now the city will fine him for putting the signs up.
^LOL
What's the rub with rats? They have a role to fill in large cities. They are Nature's garbagemen.
they are very smart critters and clean as well....it's a shame the wild one's carry diseases
The will bite you while you are asleep. If you do not wake up when bitten they will eat you. Seniors who might have a stroke at home have been eaten alive.
OK that just creeps me out. I have always wanted to visit New York but don't like rodents, not afraid of mice but in my opinion rats and mice are only good for cat food!
What? I looked this up and found nowhere of any one being eaten maybe a dead carcass they would eat you but really if you are to old to move or shoe a rat away perhaps you should be dead already. This living to a ripe old age doesn't mean rot to a rip old age. Life should end at 70 for everyone, but no everyone wants more, so they can sit around wasting space. I plan on checking out at 65, has always been my plan, I am 40 so it is getting close. I have kids and a wife and have been told it is selfish, hell yeah it is, it is my self, not you. Stop letting medicine keep people alive for inflated life expectancy figures and live normal god given lives. I think we are only made for a 60-65 year lifespan, yet we keep wanting more, humans and greed.
People in biblical days lived for hundreds of years, so not sure what you mean by God given? If God has given me the ability to get get medicine to live long enough to enjoy grandchildren then it is his will. You will be posting comments the day after your 65th b-day stating how your grandchildren make you laugh. NEVER say NEVER
It's not the rat that scares me. It's the diseases that they carry. Bad diseases - including plague - and rats don't have to bite anyone to spread them.
LOL yeah they lived for 900 years and such back then. whatever.
Please let me know where you live, so I can make your dream come true. Psst: 65 will get here quicker than you think!
Imagine if they weighed 250, were rude as hell, and walked on two legs. We would call them New Yorkers.
That is just mean, there are rude people everywhere and I am sure that all New Yorkers are not rude do you give them a reason to be?
Rosie O'Donnell
we already call them democrats.
While that may be true, it's because a$$hole was already taken by the Republicans
haha...settle down people, have a sense of humor...
That wouldn't be fair to the rats.
this is the stupidest news article. It isn't even news.
True, but it distracts you from thinking about the horrible job that Owe-Bama is doing.
How about the infestation in Florida - Rats National Convention.
Yeah, you're right. I heard Joe Biden was down there.
lawful1. You are a bit confused. In Florida we have the RepubliCAN National Convention, but in North Carolina they will have the DemocRAT National Convention. Get your facts and spelling correct. Go back to school and learn. Say starting in the first grade.
The rats gotta go..
Heavens to betsy, rats in New York city, this must be something completely new because the very idea of rats in an large old urban environment is just crazy-oh no now I've got the vapors!
We should start to use them as food and their population will disappear. LOL
have hollywood start claiming it's a delicacy... smart people will catch, kill, and sell. stupid people will buy and eat...
Better yet, call it an aphrodisiac and they will sell for $300 each in certain unnamed countries. Might help the Rhinocerous population.
The Hantavirus is carried by rats or rodents. Either way, they can kill you!!!
The hantavirus is carried by deer mice not rats. It is a tick fever that humans contract by exposure to the mouse droppings. Look information up before you comment if you don't want to look stupid.
Rats do carry Hantavirusj not just deer mice. An twice a month visits by an exterminator won't even begin to solve this problem. As per the CDC.
Rita - Hantavirus is transmitted from urine & fecal matter of the deer mouse and is pretty limited in area to the Four Corners states (CA, NM, CO, AZ). Usually contracted by people when inhaling dust or particulates containing the dried urine/fecal matter.
Just an FYI, the hantavirus is not only carried by the deer mouse, and it's definitely not relegated just to the Four Corners area of the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hantavirus
california is not a four corners state. It's Utah. But California indeed has an outbreak ongoing now in Yosemite, with 2 dead and 8 sick.
Rat Academy!! Seriously?!?
Every 4 years is the cycle when we see them running the streets.. Its called Election year.
He should put some of those signs all up and down Wall Street, it is the real rat race.
Best post today, Christopher Myers!
Good for the guy putting up these signs. He said it might draw attention to the problem....and it has. To those of you flippant about the problem, rats spread diseases that can kill and they have. They spread the plague in Europe a century or so ago that killed tousands of people.
I think the democrats can solve this problem, check Obama's book for a rat recipe - he's eaten just about everything else.
I bought two rats as pets for my middle daughter to get her to be quiet and stop bugging me. Bad mistake. Intelligent and dangerous. I'm sure there are plenty of rat-lovers who raise the things as "warm, loving, and sensitive creatures, etc" but.....The two we had went loco. I had to take care of business. At one point one had gotten up into the fenders of my car and was knawing on the water lines (thirst) - caused some damage. I learned. Never again.
They won't do anything but think it's funny until a plague breaks out. Then they'll espet the government to clean up there mess.
If he know exactly where the rodents are going to cross, why don't the exterminators just wait there and catch them all?
They need more cats... LOL
Owl's would do a better job.
Get some cats, people. This will fix your rat problem. My cat would love to volunteer for you, too. He needs a job in this economy.
How about some ratatoie!
How to cook rats?
Rats Recipe:
Ingredients
Fresh rats
Fresh herbs
Cooking oil
Chilli peppers
Butter
Peanuts
Preparation:
More Rats Recipes
Bordeaux Grilled Rats
Skin and eviscerate rats that live in wine
cellars. Brush with a thick sauce that combines olive oil and crushed shallots.
Grill over a fire of broken wine barrels.
Stewed Cane Rat
Skin and eviscerate the rat and split it
lengthwise. Fry until brown in a mixture of butter and peanut oil. Cover with
water, add tomatoes or tomato puree, hot red peppers, and salt. Simmer the rat
until tender and serve with rice.
Creamed Mice Skin, gut and wash some fat mice without removing their
heads. Cover them in a pot with ethyl alcohol and marinate 2 hours. Dice a piece
of salt pork or sowbelly and cook it slowly to extract the fat. Drain the mice,
dredge them thoroughly in a mixture of flour, pepper, and salt, and fry slowly
in the rendered fat for about 5 minutes. Add a cup of alcohol and 6 to 8 cloves,
cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Prepare a cream sauce, transfer the sauteed
mice to it, and warm them in it for about 10 minutes before serving.
From Canadian naturalist and conservationist Farley Mowatt:
Drain the
mice, dredge them thoroughly in a mixture of flour, pepper and salt, and fry
slowly in the rendered fat for about five minutes. Add a cup of alcohol and 6-8
cloves, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Prepare a cream sauce, transfer the
mice to it and warm them in it for about 10 minutes before serving.
Or my favorite: Skin and eviscerate rats. place rats in a jar, with 1 teaspoon of cloves, 1/2 teaspoon of ginger, 1 teaspoon of sugar, two tablespoons of vinegar. Place in refrigerator for two hours. place the rats on a piece of oak board. Turn oven to 375 degrees. Place rats on the board in the oven, for 1 hour 15 minutes, basting with juices every 15 minutes. Remove from oven, throw rats in the trash can eat the oak board.
Actually on the internet there are quite a number of countries where they eat rats. Tasty and Deelicious peewee.
Thomas. Shut up! You are making me hungry. LOL. Now that I've said that, I think I will go and promptly throw up my lunch. Just kidding. Cute post. You should find the recipe for Rats on a Half Shell. Guaranteed to whet your appetite.
The evidence at Pompeii demonstrated that the Romans ate a lot of rat. Kind of like the Andes peoples and their taste for guinea pig.
Need one of these in the Oval Office.
Hilarious! Go Ratman Go!
Pffft....to us rats are gross. But to other countries they are a delicacy. Pack 'em and ship 'em to the third world countries who are starving. They'll love it, we'll look good and everybody is happy. The End
And to other rats, rats are beautiful.
so you can get a rat with a big mac but not a large coke
Oops - I mean UT, not CA (4 corners) - though there were some recent cases in CA I think.
As a former New Yorker, I know that seeing rats on the subway platform is really scary, these rats are in the garbage bins and on the tracks where people throw trash. New York's rat problem can be controlled by having more trash collection. The city has lots of great restaurants and many throw the food in large open dumpster bins. The city sanitation department collects trash two days out of the week. Either the city collects trash daily or the restaurant industry should store the discarded food in airtight containers until trash collection day. There are more rats in NY than people, have to get a handle on problem before rats over run the whole city.
Scary? Most of us just ignore them. Some of the people around are scarier and carry more diseases than the rats so that's who we're keeping our eyes on.
If the desire to go to New York ever overtakes me, I will remember this article and go to Bahamas, instead.