How New York City’s “Rat Action Plan” Aims To Rid The City Of Its Rampant Rodent Problem
New York City is implementing a Rat Action Plan and defining mitigation zones to get to the root of its massive rodent infestation, the plan will also require all business owners to use rat-proof garbage bins to avoid attracting rodent populations.
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New York City is one of the biggest cities in America, synonymous with its famous skyline and yellow taxi. It is the city of dreams, where Broadway was born, and it seems where a colossal number of rats live. Maybe they saw Ratatouille and wanted city life; who knows? But the problem is starting to affect tourism and the inhabitants living there.
This week New York City Council passed four new pieces of legislation to increase the effort in controlling the rat problem. Aptly named “The Rat Action Plan,” it was approved by the city council’s Sanitation committee on Wednesday.
There are several stipulations within the “Rat Action Plan” to help reduce the number of rodents within the city. These include establishing rat mitigation zones. These zones will consist of the worst affected areas so that the city can concentrate its actions on getting to the root of the problem. It also includes an annual report on reducing the number of rats, and it requires the owners of large buildings to use rodent-proof bins, which will attract fewer rodents to areas with high populations.
For new buildings being constructed within the city, new pest management standards will be implemented to ensure rodents will not enter buildings where people live and work.
The number of rat complaints surged by over 60% in the last three years, and rat sightings have gone up by over 120% this year alone.
While these problems are not a quick fix to the problem, over a more extended period, it should at least reduce the sightings of rodents in people’s everyday lives. If people and tourists keep seeing rats on the streets of New York regularly, people will not want to live there, and tourism, which many businesses in the city rely on, will be significantly affected. People will holiday in American cities like Miami, which is much more sanitary for families than New York at the moment.
Along with the new “Rat Action Plan,” the New York county council will implement a range of other measures to help discourage the rats, such as residential and commercial garbage can be placed on the curb after 8 pm. This new time will reduce the length of time trash is available before being collected by the rubbish companies.
These measures are only the start in the war on rats in New York, but since it was named the second “rattiest” city in America this year, something has to be done as they do not want that to take over as their new nickname, instead of “The Big Apple.”
In today’s society, having problems like rodents being so prevalent in a major city, to the point they have become a tourist sight, is worrying. It violates people’s cleanliness and health to have that many rats running around while people are trying to live and work in a condensed area. While the New York city council is now clamping down on the problem, they should not have left it so bad to the point where a new set of legislation needs to be brought in. With many other issues people are facing at the moment, do they need to be followed home by a rat?
