The recent rat-fest caught on tape at a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant in the Village has renewed fears, prompting the city's Health Department to lead the charge to eradicate rodents.
The city spends $8 million a year on rodent control and has a team of more than 100 inspectors who close about 500 restaurants each year.
“We can always use more to address the problem. It's a big problem,” says Deputy Health Commissioner Jessica Leighton.
Leighton points out rats are a quality of life issue, not a health risk.
“They are not what causes food borne disease; they are not what causes poor health conditions,” says Leighton.
She says the city has stepped up its efforts in the last few years and is using new technologies to target neighborhoods prone to rats.
“For certain communities, the reasons that they have high rodent problems will be different than in other communities and we are trying to address the underlying factors,” says Leighton.
Robert Sullivan knows more about rats than anyone. In 2001, he spent a year studying them in an alleyway in downtown Manhattan.
“You can see where they would crawl in and out of abandoned buildings,” he says.
The result of all his research was the bestseller "Rats.”
“I'm not crazy about rats. I don't love them. I don't live with them all the time,” he says.
1 comment:
what are they crazy?
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