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Rats In NY City

airedale

By airedale,
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airedale Veteran

airedale

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Article about complaining about the Rat problem in NY City

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What are there more of than people in New York? If you said any type of vermin you guessed correctly. Roaches, I hate these little critters. But I hate rats worse. They live in the sewers, in the basements, in the walls of buildings, in construction areas, in alley ways and in the docks  and rivers. There are millions of them in the downtown district alone. Late at night, they emerge from their hiding places to forage. They form a stream of living creatures as they migrate after midnight from their hidden lairs they call home to scour the streets for bits of hot dogs, pizza crusts, subway sandwich leftovers in trash cans, on sidwalks and the hundreds of thousand pounds of edible trash left over by Brokers, Lawyers and every worker, who works in the downtown area. 

If you ever have the bad luck of having to work very late at night and to take the subway home, you may have had to literally jump over the swarming rodents to get to the subway station. When you get to the station, look at the tracks in the shadows and darker areas. You will see them crawling around scavenging for food. 

Sometimes at night a car does drive through the downtown area and produces road kill which lets you know what the rodents look like. They are only slightly smaller than a cat with greasy, dirty fur and long yellow gnawing teeth. These teeth can eat through wood easily, cables with copper core, and even concrete with only a little more difficulty. Once in a while they will show themselves in daylight. It is not a pleasant sight. 

They have attacked people as well. A pack of rats when disturbed can bring down a person with a well coordinated attack. Their attacks on children in tenements are well know and well documented. However, they have emerged from lairs and attacked people walking in the street in broad daylight. I have seen them attack a woman walking by a fenced off pit of a long ago demolished building. Many of the people on their lunch break beat them off of her with briefcases, canes, and by well place kicks. She was taken to the hospital with multiple bite wounds on her legs. Luckily she kept her footing and they didn't reach her neck or head. 
 
The next day there were about 30 exterminators with clubs, rat poison, and large burlap sacks. They were fully dressed in protective body suits including high thick boots. They opened the wooden fence and descended into the pit. Dozens upon dozens of filled, large, burlap sacks packed with dead vermin were carted away in dump trucks during the day. This process went on every day for weeks. I think they just scratched the surface with their labors. But eventually the street was re-opened to pedestrians and the wooden fence resealed. 

You would think they would get cats by the truck load to fight this problem which exists even as I write this article. The truth is that a cat is no match for two or three New York rats. They are tough. Dog breeds used for rat killing would not fare any better. So the rats are accepted as just another New York problem. They are ignored. How many are there? Are there ten million rats in New York City? No, think hundreds of millions of them in the five Boroughs, maybe more. There is no way that anyone can accurately estimate their numbers. 

Some words of warning if you walk down the dark streets of New York at night. Stay away from the sewer opening. Stay out of dark alleyways. Don't look to see what is making that scratching sound in the basement. Play by New York rules in New York.

Oh and by they way, have a good night.

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philoshop Newbie

philoshop

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As my old neighborhood in Buffalo deteriorated I'd sit on my front porch with a few friends and count rats at night. We would drink when a rat was spotted. We never lasted very long at that game. There just wasn't enough beer on the planet to keep it up. It's not just NYC.

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tommyc50 Newbie

tommyc50

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yeah I live in queens we have a lot of rats in the city ,youtube pizza rat it was in the subway funny as hell.But whats worse is the two legged rats we have and they get rewarded now by the city. If you see a truck or anyone idling more than 3 mins you call the rat line 311 [one of mikey bloomberg claim to fame ]and if the person gets convicted and you get part of the fine. Its crazy if its a pvt contractor or really anyone not working for the city they are there in lightning speed to write tickets ,but if its a city agency they give you a confirmation # and do nothing and you call and call and they say oh heres a confirmation # I say I got one already . And they are arrogant condescending and rude I swear they find these people @ the detox @ Belview  hospital

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Rattler Newbie

Rattler

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As a pre-teen in the 1960's, visiting relatives in Matamoras, PA just across the Delaware river from Port Jervis, NY,  I was often taken to the local dump outside of town just before dusk, to be properly instructed in moving target marksmanship.  Just as the sun set, the rats would begin to come out and the owner of the dump encouraged people to come up and shoot them.  We used .22 rifles, .22 pistols, pellet rifles, pellet pistols and a single shot 12 gauge with target loads.  All of the firearms were utilizing iron sights too.  (One of my uncles used the 12 gauge the most, as he wasn't a very good shot with anything else.)  This is where I learned real world gun safety too.

I must have killed a thousand rats in my many trips to that dump, and it improved my shooting skills, as well as hunting skills, tremendously.  Long shots, moving shots, multiple shots, low light condition shots, shots through small openings and tiny target shots were all common, giving me lots of practice, improving my live target shooting skills beyond the level of most other boys my age.

These rat hunting expeditions probably instilled in me the greatest part of my desire to go hunting as soon as I was old enough to legally go.  

My wing shooting skills were also perfected not far from that dump, at an old barn that had too many pigeons in it.  However, that is a subject best saved for another thread.

I think it is a shame that such experiences are not available to young people today, because I believe they offer a chance to learn a positive skill set in firearm safety, resourcefulness, patience, discipline, bonding  and responsible fun, that should be part of every child's upbringing.

Today, the closest thing one could hope for, is sending your child off to kill terrorists in the military.  However, lots of earlier experience shooting rats at the dump, would help when they got there.

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left field Mentor

left field

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47 minutes ago, Biz-R-OWorld said:

I’m in NYC 5 days a week since 2008 and have never seen a rat except in subway

Go downtown on garbage night. Kick a bag.

 

1 hour ago, Bill Schmidt said:

My Girlfriend told me a long time.e ago that there are underground shafts in NYC that are not on all the newer maps.  Plenty of people down there as well. 

 

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