New York’s US$32m plan to reduce rat population

New York City has announced a US$32 million, multi-agency plan to reduce its rat population.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday that the plan will target rats in the Grand Concourse area of the Bronx; Chinatown, the East Village and the Lower East Side in Manhattan; and the Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant areas of Brooklyn.

By September, the city will start installing solar-powered rubbish compactors with rat-resistant openings and replacing wire waste baskets with steel cans. It also plans to cement basement floors in public housing. Proposed legislation would regulate the hours garbage could be left at the curb, and increase fines for illegal dumping.

In February, health officials said one person had died and two others were severely sickened in a Bronx neighbourhood due to a rare disease transmitted by rats.

The city’s rat battle is far from new. Experts say it’s impossible to accurately estimate the number, though they say efforts in recent years have greatly reduced “active rat signs.”

In 2014, a Columbia University doctoral student using statistical analysis estimated the number of rats in the city at 2 million, claiming to debunk a popular theory that there is one rat for each of the city’s 8½ million people.