NYC School Shows How to Bait, Trap Rats

Discuss gangs in the Northeast section of the US in the following states; Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island & Vermont.
Post Reply
User avatar
Christina Marie
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 9305
Joined: August 11th, 2005, 4:58 pm
Country: United States
If in the United States: Pennsylvania
What city do you live in now?: From LB to PA
Location: CA

NYC School Shows How to Bait, Trap Rats

Unread post by Christina Marie » December 12th, 2005, 8:52 am

Dec 11, 7:05 AM EST


NYC School Shows How to Bait, Trap Rats

By SARA KUGLER
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- City officials - hoping better educated foot soldiers can wage a smarter battle against an all-time high rat population - have opened the Rodent Control Academy, an insitution of higher learning about vermin that scurry around in low places.

The city enlisted Bobby Corrigan to teach a decidedly creepy curriculum that strives to show city workers how to properly bait, trap and poison the rodents in ways that don't just drive an infestation down the block.

Rodent complaints and health department exterminations are at unprecedented highs in New York, and the little ruffians are everywhere - scampering through subway tunnels, rooting through trash, dashing across parks, burrowing into the walls of apartment buildings. They can transmit disease, start fires by gnawing on electrical cords, and sometimes bite, usually children and the elderly.

"There's no question that we have a rat problem ... the city has put out traps and poison at record rates," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in September while outlining the city's yearly report card, which showed a dramatic increase in rat complaints.

The dilemma is exacerbated by bureaucracy, because one infestation usually requires the attention of several municipal agencies.

Consider this: A complaint comes in about a swarm of rats overtaking the corner of a city park. That is the parks department territory, but if it's near a subway line, the transportation department is involved. Nearby restaurants mean the health department might want to weigh in. If there are sewer lines, better call the Department of Environmental Protection. The list goes on.

Now, any agency that ever deals with a single rat is sending its employees to the Rodent Control Academy, where Corrigan schools them about everything regarding rats and the best practices for getting rid of them, putting all city departments on the same page.

"It's everybody working together to eradicate the problem," said Flavia Diaz, who works for the pest control arm of the Health Department, which organized the course that is funded by a $600,000 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant.

Buy AP Photo Reprints






To lead the academy, the city tapped Corrigan, a world-renowned expert who once spent months living in a rat-infested barn to better study the rodent's behavior.

The Brooklyn native who now lives in Indiana is so enthused about the animal that he occasionally yelps with excitement, especially when debunking rat myths. And there are enough urban legends about these creatures for Corrigan to spend a significant amount of class time knocking them down.

After explaining the rat's formal name, "rattus norvegicus," Corrigan projects a giant photograph of a scrawny rat up on the wall and tells his students that, despite widespread rumors and tall tales, New York City's rodents are not "as big as cats."

"People like to say, 'I saw a super rat in the subway, or I saw a super rat in the alley way. It was a giant,'" Corrigan said.

In fact, he says, the biggest rat in New York would weigh about a pound and three ounces (half a kilogram). Other widely believed rat trivia that are untrue: They don't urinate uncontrollably, they're not blind and there aren't legions of rats below the city - most are at ground level or living in walls and ceilings. In extreme cases, rats have been found nesting in bases of beds, chairs and couches.

Rats are not triple-jointed, or boneless, or made up of a soft skeleton that lets them squeeze through small holes. They do only need a half-inch (1.3-centimeter) opening, but that is because they're just flexible.

As for those who are terrified of a rat running up the pant leg? That's not exactly unfounded. A scared rat confronted by a human will be looking for somewhere to hide, and a shadow cast by a cuff looks mighty safe.

"They'll head for the shadow thinking it's a hole, and up the leg they'll go," said Corrigan, who speaks from experience.

And the saying that there's a rat for every one of New York's eight million residents? Not true. Corrigan says there's no way to know how many rats reside in the city, and can only define it as having "no shortage of them."

The city wants to arm its rat school graduates with the right kind of knowledge to make a dent in the infestation.

Anyone can kill off a few rats by laying poison and setting traps, but rooting out an entire population from a neighborhood takes interagency coordination and planning.

Students learn in the course that the average rat eats one ounce of food every 24 hours, so a family of 16 rats consumes an entire pound ( 0.45 kilograms) every day.

Sloppy sanitation is often to blame for keeping them fed.

"We don't have major rat infestations unless there's major food available," Corrigan said. "When people say 'How do I get rid of rats,' the first thing I always say is, 'Tell me what they're eating.' I don't say, 'Oh here's the poison.'"

Of course, poison and traps play an important role in the rat war, and the academy dedicates several sessions to techniques for placement and use of those devices. For example, glue traps don't work well for rats because those whisker-like hairs help them avoid unfamiliar objects in their paths.

Corrigan recommends setting previously used traps, because the pheromones make rats more likely to approach them. Students also learn to mimic Mother Nature when distributing bait pellets in a burrow - scattering them like seeds, berries or nuts blown by the wind.

Rats are highly sensitive to changes in their environments, and will steer clear of items and patterns that don't fit in.

"I've learned a lot - he's giving us different avenues and better knowledge to apply to what we already know," said Jairo Matos, a student who does pest control for the New York City Housing Authority.

This week the students are all from city housing departments, next up is education. Corrigan tailors the curriculum slightly for each agency, but most of his tips and tricks for spotting and eradicating critters apply to everyone.

"When you're done with this academy," he tells his class on the first day, "you're going to walk down a New York City street and see everything differently."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/ ... SECTION=US

User avatar
Christina Marie
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 9305
Joined: August 11th, 2005, 4:58 pm
Country: United States
If in the United States: Pennsylvania
What city do you live in now?: From LB to PA
Location: CA

Unread post by Christina Marie » December 12th, 2005, 8:59 am

That is crazy. Any New Yorkers....is it really as bad as this article says? We have rats pretty bad where I live, partially due to the fact we have an orange tree....but I just shoot them with my BB gun because I have 2 cats and poison or rat traps are out of the question.

Cold Bear
Heavy Weight
Heavy Weight
Posts: 2079
Joined: March 18th, 2004, 12:22 pm
What city do you live in now?: New York City
Location: L.A. to Brooklyn, NY

Unread post by Cold Bear » December 12th, 2005, 9:28 am

The rat problem is getting worse in new york there's no question.

I'm just moving out my crib to another spot now and found two mouse nests in my crib (basically small rats). First we had a very bad roach problem and killed them little f*ckers off but then it was just mad mouse droppings and furry b*tches boning out across the floor when the lights came on. This is part of the reason cats don't like their landlords, you tell them, listen there's all types of vermin in this spot can you call the exterminator, they'll tell you "Why don't you keep the place clean" like we are dirty (we do got some dirty ass neighbors and that's the reason we couldn't get rid of the vermin). It only takes one or two unclean apartments to f*ck it up for the whole building.

LIke the article said the glue traps don't do nothing. You gotta just poison them or better yet use a new trap that electrocutes them. You plug it in and put some peanut butter on it, when the rat steps on the plate it gets killed by the electricity. They're a little expensive but truth is every generation of rats and mice gets smarter so you have to try new shit.

User avatar
Christina Marie
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 9305
Joined: August 11th, 2005, 4:58 pm
Country: United States
If in the United States: Pennsylvania
What city do you live in now?: From LB to PA
Location: CA

Unread post by Christina Marie » December 12th, 2005, 9:42 am

Cold Bear wrote:The rat problem is getting worse in new york there's no question.

I'm just moving out my crib to another spot now and found two mouse nests in my crib (basically small rats). First we had a very bad roach problem and killed them little f*ckers off but then it was just mad mouse droppings and furry b*tches boning out across the floor when the lights came on. This is part of the reason cats don't like their landlords, you tell them, listen there's all types of vermin in this spot can you call the exterminator, they'll tell you "Why don't you keep the place clean" like we are dirty (we do got some dirty ass neighbors and that's the reason we couldn't get rid of the vermin). It only takes one or two unclean apartments to f*ck it up for the whole building.

LIke the article said the glue traps don't do nothing. You gotta just poison them or better yet use a new trap that electrocutes them. You plug it in and put some peanut butter on it, when the rat steps on the plate it gets killed by the electricity. They're a little expensive but truth is every generation of rats and mice gets smarter so you have to try new shit.
I can't use the poison or the traps because of my kitty's. My cat almost died a couple years back...don't know if it was poison or some damn asparagus fern berries...either one has arsenic, the berries are just a natural type of it. I even went as far as to pass out flyers in my neighborhood asking that residents please refrain from putting poison out. That if they had a rodent problem, to please make sure their trash cans had lids on them and any fruit trees were rid of rotting fruit. I was shooting like 4 or 5 a night in the summer time, they seem to have diminished in numbers, I dont hear the little bastards scurrying across my roof as much now. And yes it does only take 1 or 2 apartments with a roach or rodent problem to eventually affect a whole building. I don't know if it's the same in NY, but out here....you get these slumlords who
will spray the 1 or 2 apartments (if you are lucky enough to get them to do that :roll:) and that only chases them to the apartment next door. Stupid...because tenting the whole building would in the longrun save the owners $$$$. Go figure...

Cold Bear
Heavy Weight
Heavy Weight
Posts: 2079
Joined: March 18th, 2004, 12:22 pm
What city do you live in now?: New York City
Location: L.A. to Brooklyn, NY

Unread post by Cold Bear » December 12th, 2005, 9:58 am

I don't think they could tent the whole shit because it a large four story two sided building. Another problem is that it's a series of buildings connected side to side [like 7 in a row] you would have to hit the whole block at once to avoid migration between the buildings and they all got different owners mostly. Mostly Hassidic but I don't know if they own the whole block.

Funny most dogs usually know not to eat the poison but maybe cats do not. Well I know one thing and that's the mice definitely know how to avoid the poison. :lol:

User avatar
Christina Marie
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 9305
Joined: August 11th, 2005, 4:58 pm
Country: United States
If in the United States: Pennsylvania
What city do you live in now?: From LB to PA
Location: CA

Unread post by Christina Marie » December 12th, 2005, 11:03 am

Cold Bear wrote:I don't think they could tent the whole shit because it a large four story two sided building. Another problem is that it's a series of buildings connected side to side [like 7 in a row] you would have to hit the whole block at once to avoid migration between the buildings and they all got different owners mostly. Mostly Hassidic but I don't know if they own the whole block.

Funny most dogs usually know not to eat the poison but maybe cats do not. Well I know one thing and that's the mice definitely know how to avoid the poison. :lol:
I was told that for cats....its got a sweet smell, it attracts them the same way it does the rats. And I am still paying on that vet bill...it was like $3,000. But my kitty is my baby. His name is Cassius Clay..lol.

gent11236
Straw Weight
Straw Weight
Posts: 88
Joined: August 10th, 2004, 7:32 pm
Location: Brooklyn, New york
Contact:

Unread post by gent11236 » December 24th, 2005, 2:38 am

lol ya rats/mice is serious out in NY. When i first moved over here was serious with them mice, niggas used to creep up on me while i was on the computer. When i go to turn on the tv they run on my hand and shit. I got used to them though and decided to let them watch tv with me. Another thing that mad it worst my uncle used to feed them so you have this big fat one running back and forth and it just wouldn't move. My moms hate them shits though so she got traps and we used to catch like 2-3 a day, come to find out it was like a fucking complex underground rat hole system. One time i eating and the mice on where you hang the curtains for windows, it was on the platform that holds the curtains so must be a hole there. My raditor has a big as 5-6 inch hold which i just put 2 x 4 wood over it cause i can't fix that right now.

Also forget somewhere in manhattan have it the worst. Rats be running around the sidewalk like they own the street. They got a rat lane so they don't get run over.

ManifestTruth
Middle Weight
Middle Weight
Posts: 571
Joined: December 1st, 2005, 3:30 pm

Unread post by ManifestTruth » December 28th, 2005, 2:19 pm

Yeah, it's like that Uptown as well. Rats all over that f'in piece!! Throw out
the trash, better have industrial strength garbage containers. I used to
live on 123rd @Lennox Ave. Lots of the brownstones have been gutted
and the rat nation has been brought out into the open... Anywho, trapping
them is best thing. Have to kill their offspring too. Rats multiply a hundred
times faster than Bebe Kids..

Post Reply