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Speaker 1: Hi, It's West Casova. We're taking a break this week

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Speaker 1: for the holidays, so here's an episode you might have

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Speaker 1: missed from Bloomberg News and iHeartRadio. It's The Big Take.

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Speaker 1: I'm West Casova. Today we go out in the city

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Speaker 1: looking for rats. The number of rat related complaints in

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Speaker 1: American cities has spiked in recent years, which will come

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Speaker 1: as no surprise to anyone who's taken an evening stroll

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Speaker 1: in New York or Chicago or here where I live Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. They are fearless and they're all over the place,

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Speaker 1: which made us wonder are there more rats now than

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Speaker 1: there were before? Like, did the pandemic cause a rat

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Speaker 1: baby boom? Cities have tried and failed for decades to

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Speaker 1: control rat populations without much luck, So what can be

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Speaker 1: done to get rid of them? Fortunately, my intrepid colleagues

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Speaker 1: here at The Big Take podcast set out to answer

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Speaker 1: those questions. Producers Katherine Fink in Washington and Rebecca Shassan

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Speaker 1: and Sam Gobauer in New York are here to tell

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Speaker 1: us what they found. Catherine, Rebecca, Sam, nice to have

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Speaker 1: you on this side of the microphone.

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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for having us.

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Speaker 3: Wes wouldn't be anywhere else.

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Speaker 4: It's going to be fun, Rebecca.

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Speaker 5: To start.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask you, most people I know, me included,

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Speaker 1: don't exactly love rats. No one is happy to cross

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Speaker 1: paths with one of them on the street. But for

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Speaker 1: the most part, they keep to themselves. Why do we

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Speaker 1: need to get rid of them?

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Speaker 3: This is one of the big questions that I set

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Speaker 3: out to answer, So I asked rodentologists doctor Bobby Corrigan

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Speaker 3: to break it down. Here's what he told me.

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Speaker 5: They live in dirty areas, so you know when an

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Speaker 5: animal forges in and around all this trash we're talking about.

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Speaker 5: We know when trash goes bad right and gets rotten, right.

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Speaker 5: We don't need it because we worry about getting sick.

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Speaker 5: So the king food attracts various bacteria viruses that can

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Speaker 5: hurt us and even in some cases kill us. If

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Speaker 5: you get on CDC dot gov and you put in rats,

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Speaker 5: you'll see that rats are listed of being associated with

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Speaker 5: about fifty five different diseases. So disease is the second thing.

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Speaker 5: The third thing that's off and overlooked is rats. Getting

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Speaker 5: we look at all these buildings around us, well, I

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Speaker 5: can guarantee you we're looking at about went to the

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Speaker 5: varge about eight fairly old apartment buildings right across the

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Speaker 5: street here. Rats have been in those ceilings and they

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Speaker 5: will make their burrow instead of the earth. The burrows

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Speaker 5: will be in between each floor. So it's back to

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Speaker 5: they were chewing on twigs and stems and all kinds

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Speaker 5: of branches. That's their natural life, even before the way cities.

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Speaker 5: So when a rat is in a ceiling living close

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Speaker 5: to someone, and you're in the ceiling has electrical wires,

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Speaker 5: so you can see the issue. So they start chewing

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Speaker 5: on electrical wires, and the electrical wire sparks, and literally

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Speaker 5: they can burn a house down and have burnt houses there.

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Speaker 3: You'll be hearing a lot more from doctor Corrigan later on.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so now that we've established that, Catherine, you actually

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Speaker 1: went to see for yourself exactly how our fine city, Washington,

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Speaker 1: DC is trying to control the rat population. And to

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Speaker 1: be honest, I'm a little squeamish to find out the answer.

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Speaker 2: Maybe for good reasonles that question led me to the

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Speaker 2: Brightwood neighborhood in Northwest DC.

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Speaker 6: So you the crew, I'm the crew.

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Speaker 5: Me.

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Speaker 2: You have a much bigger crew than I do. Scared

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Speaker 2: of I'm not scared of rats? Am I about to

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Speaker 2: see a lot of rats? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm running.

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Speaker 5: I might need to give you a shovel.

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Speaker 2: You can, Oh yeah, as long as I can do

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Speaker 2: it with one hand.

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Speaker 1: I'm willing.

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Speaker 7: This would this would be a perfect place for me

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Speaker 7: to bring people that they want to smell wreck.

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Speaker 8: I wish I could bottle it up and smell it.

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Speaker 2: What what a rat smell like to you?

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Speaker 5: Take a rent?

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Speaker 2: Okay, m hm, Oh yeah, that's bad. That's not good.

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Speaker 1: You might need to get a shovel, Catherine. Okay, how

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Speaker 1: did this little meet up come about?

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Speaker 2: Okay, I cannot emphasize this enough that I had no

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Speaker 2: idea what I was walking into. So I reached out

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Speaker 2: to DC's Rodent and Vector Control team. You heard some

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Speaker 2: of the folks there and clip they're part of the

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Speaker 2: Department of Health. And basically they gave me an address

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Speaker 2: and I went that is all I knew going in.

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Speaker 2: So that smell I referenced was coming from this big

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Speaker 2: shed that was full of garbage cans in front of

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Speaker 2: an apartment complex. And the rodent control team told me

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Speaker 2: that this is a rat hotspot. They estimate that over

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Speaker 2: twenty rat burrows are underground there, And just for context,

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Speaker 2: a burrow is at least a dozen rats, and one

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Speaker 2: to two burrows is pretty typical in a residential yard,

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Speaker 2: so that kind of gives you a sense of just

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Speaker 2: how bad the problem was. So about two hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty rats. The team comes to treat the site about

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Speaker 2: every two weeks.

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Speaker 3: So how many people are part of this team that's

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Speaker 3: doing this treatment.

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Speaker 2: When I got there, there were about seven guys or so.

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Speaker 2: They all had shovels in hand. I had no idea

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Speaker 2: what the shovels were for or what I was about

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Speaker 2: to see. And then they turned on the machine.

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Speaker 8: Let me get in the wool zone.

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Speaker 2: So we've got this green contraption. It sort of looks

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Speaker 2: like a lawnmower. I guess it's currently pumping chemicals underground

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Speaker 2: where the rats are burrowing. So occasionally we're seeing some

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Speaker 2: pop out of the holes.

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Speaker 5: Ope, oh oh.

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Speaker 2: That was the sound of a shovel smacking the concrete

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Speaker 2: as the team attempts to kill an escape rat. Unclear

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Speaker 2: if they actually got them or not. This is not

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Speaker 2: for the faint of heart.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that was way worse than I was expecting. Catherine,

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Speaker 1: So we heard a lot of sounds, and that we

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Speaker 1: heard that sound of the machine. We definitely heard the

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Speaker 1: sound of that shovel smacking something. But describe what they

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Speaker 1: were doing. How were they trying to get rid of

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Speaker 1: all those rats that were underground.

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Speaker 2: After they turned the machines off. I learned that the

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Speaker 2: team was basically pumping carbon monoxide into the ground, which

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Speaker 2: suffocates the rats on mass almost immediately. Some of them

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Speaker 2: scurried out of the ground and were chased with shovels.

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Speaker 2: That's what you heard there, and the team did this

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Speaker 2: treatment a few times on both sides of the street.

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Speaker 2: I asked Gerard Brown, who's the program manager for the

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Speaker 2: DC rodent invector controlled team, all about this, and he

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Speaker 2: told me there's really no way to know how many

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Speaker 2: rats they exterminated, so we have that estimate twenty or

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Speaker 2: so burrows. But because the ground is their final resting place,

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Speaker 2: the city is basically left with a rat graveyard and

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Speaker 2: they don't really know what's under there.

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Speaker 3: That all sounds pretty terrible for you, Like how many

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Speaker 3: times a day does this team have to pump carbon

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Speaker 3: monoxide into the ground and slap rats over the head

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Speaker 3: with shovels.

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Speaker 2: The short answer is many times a day. But I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna let Gerard Brown answer that question.

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Speaker 7: So inspect the performers go twelve complaints a day, twelve

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Speaker 7: and then when they finished their twelve, then they go

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Speaker 7: to hotspots something like this where they've been working on

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Speaker 7: you know, So the complaint's been going up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I read somewhere that last year the complaints had

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Speaker 2: doubled or even more than doubled since twenty eighteen. I'm curious,

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Speaker 2: are there more rots?

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Speaker 4: Have they migrated?

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Speaker 2: Maybe, you know, because of the space of the pandemic.

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Speaker 7: So the uptick, I believe comes from a few things,

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Speaker 7: you know, the mild winners for the last decade, the

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Speaker 7: more people over seven hundred thousand people in DC that

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Speaker 7: live here. And then the visitors come in and go,

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Speaker 7: and then you have food establishments twenty five percent of

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Speaker 7: new food established within the last two years, you know.

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Speaker 7: And then the pandemic hit and people work from home.

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Speaker 7: Where they work from home, they generate more trash. People

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Speaker 7: don't use their garbage proes like this shoot. You know,

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Speaker 7: those containers that the food comes in, they throw them

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Speaker 7: in the trend without washing them out.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, garbage and sanitation is going to be a major

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Speaker 3: theme in this episode. Definitely more on that later.

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Speaker 2: So as far as rat control goes, there's carbon monoxide,

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Speaker 2: and I asked Brown what other techniques the team uses

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Speaker 2: to keep the rat population under control. He told me

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Speaker 2: they also use what's called tracking powder. Basically, they shoot

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Speaker 2: it in a hole in the ground and it gets

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Speaker 2: on the rats fur and when the rats groom themselves,

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Speaker 2: they ingust the powder and die. So still pretty grim.

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Speaker 2: But there are also less conventional methods on the table

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Speaker 2: that don't always entail killing rats. For example, contraception. So

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Speaker 2: back in twenty nineteen, the DC team piloted rat birth control.

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Speaker 2: I also wanted to ask Brown about something I'd read

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Speaker 2: about that was happening in Chicago using feral cats to

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Speaker 2: fight the rats.

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Speaker 7: Were plan on using cats, but it's a company that

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Speaker 7: hands goals no most metarians, but we get pushedback. You know,

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Speaker 7: people don't want dogs killing rats, so we're not gonna

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Speaker 7: do that, got it? Yeah, I'll go buy a whole

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Speaker 7: bunch of lis.

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Speaker 1: Catherine. Listening to all of this, it seems like cities

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Speaker 1: are just not up to the job, like the rats

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Speaker 1: are gonna win. How did all of this end? How

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Speaker 1: did you leave it.

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Speaker 2: I thank the team for letting me pry during a

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Speaker 2: very routine part of their day. We took a photo together.

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Speaker 2: Then Brown asked me for my address. I told him,

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Speaker 2: and he knew my exact block well, in large part

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Speaker 2: because it is such a hospitable area for uts. He

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Speaker 2: said that he's going to bring the team by sometime

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Speaker 2: to help get this problem under control. So that was

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Speaker 2: pretty exciting. But I think ultimately what I took away

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Speaker 2: from this experience, besides just how visceral it was, was

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Speaker 2: just the serious limitations of these methods of rat control

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Speaker 2: and how a city like DC can get ahead of

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Speaker 2: the problem.

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Speaker 1: Catherine, Rebecca, and Sam assure me that by the end

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Speaker 1: of this episode they will actually reveal how cities can

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Speaker 1: get control of rats. We'll start talking about that after

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Speaker 1: the break. All right, Rebecca, you've answered my question. Why

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Speaker 1: do we have to get rid of rats? Catherine told

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Speaker 1: us they're really hard to get rid of.

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Speaker 5: What do we do?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: So, I've never had any particular fondness for rats out

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Speaker 3: in their natural urban habitat, but through the reporting process

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Speaker 3: on this story, I realized that I actually have no

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Speaker 3: idea what the answers to that question, though, I reached

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Speaker 3: out to somebody I knew could help me out, doctor

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Speaker 3: Bobby Corrigan. This man has a PhD in Urban rodentology

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Speaker 3: from Purdue. He consults with you as cities on their

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Speaker 3: pest problems, and basically any question you have about rats,

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Speaker 3: he can answer it. He answered all of my questions

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Speaker 3: ever so patiently, all while we were taking what he

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Speaker 3: called a rat walk about around the city. Oh see,

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Speaker 3: over here is one right there. It's scaried underneath the

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Speaker 3: roly bin, and there he goes down that ramp. This

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Speaker 3: was a little unexpected because around this time it was

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Speaker 3: about ten thirty in the morning, and according to doctor Corrigan,

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Speaker 3: that is long after a rat's general bedtime.

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Speaker 5: I usually say two hours past. Gosk is your rat

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Speaker 5: rat o'clock?

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Speaker 3: It didn't seem like all that big a threat, just

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Speaker 3: to see one rat hanging out on this plastic dumpster.

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Speaker 3: But behind us was a trash can with an ad

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Speaker 3: that said the opposite.

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Speaker 5: Says a little litter cant can lead to big problems,

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Speaker 5: and then has a silhouette of a big scary We

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Speaker 5: gotta make rats scary. You know, it's Hollywood. They love

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Speaker 5: to make rats scary. Some great scientists out in Vancouver.

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Speaker 5: They published a paper in twenty nineteen showing that when

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Speaker 5: rats get close to us and live in our quarters,

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Speaker 5: psychologically it really whacks us out. We can't deal with it.

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Speaker 5: We feel attacked, we feel invaded, and so forth. So

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Speaker 5: we cannot have our serenity in our own nests that

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Speaker 5: we depend on. And you see a rat skurry across

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Speaker 5: your living room floor when you sit down to relax,

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Speaker 5: or in your kitchen when you get up at night

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Speaker 5: to get a snack or something, a rat goes across

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Speaker 5: the kitchen sink, you're not going back to sleep.

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Speaker 3: Doctor Corgan told me to figure out how to get

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Speaker 3: rid of the rats. You've got to figure out what

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Speaker 3: makes them tick.

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Speaker 5: When I was a kid, I love Sherlock Holmes, so

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Speaker 5: I think that's why I'm a rodentologist. It's always Sherlock Holmes,

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Speaker 5: and so when I walk about in parks, I usually

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Speaker 5: typically want to see where their burrows are. It's a

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Speaker 5: little bit like I like the troutfish with fly fishing,

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Speaker 5: and you learn how to read the stream, so there

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Speaker 5: won't be burrows any old place in the park. There'll

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Speaker 5: be burrows, specifically in some areas in the park, and

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Speaker 5: that's what we're gonna look for. Now. One of the

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Speaker 5: things I'm gonna be visually searching for, you know, is

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Speaker 5: to see anything heavy, like ornamental rocks that we may

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Speaker 5: plant or naturally occurring rocks. So here, right here, we

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Speaker 5: have a very large rock. You'll notice this big amount

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Speaker 5: of soil here with all the gravelly look to it.

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Speaker 5: That tells you that's the main entrance. So rats have

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Speaker 5: a nest that is typically six feet long and has

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Speaker 5: three doors. One is the main door and two are

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Speaker 5: what we call escape holes, you know, or we could

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Speaker 5: think of them like we have side doors and back

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Speaker 5: doors to our own homes. But this is classic. There's

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Speaker 5: another factor here, as I keep stressing it, and that

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Speaker 5: is even though that would make good for a good

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Speaker 5: apartment complex, the question is is it in Philly close

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Speaker 5: proximity to getting out of the house, getting to their

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Speaker 5: food quickly and getting back to the house safely. Because

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Speaker 5: we have a major thoroughfare right out on the street here,

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Speaker 5: and you'll notice restaurants right so from here, even you know,

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Speaker 5: along the street in any direction is within the home

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Speaker 5: range of these rats easily. Research has shown good research

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Speaker 5: recent research has shown, you know, a city rat it

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Speaker 5: can start a ninety feet in any direction for the

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Speaker 5: short end of the home range, and go all the

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Speaker 5: way up to four hundred and ninety five hundred feet

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Speaker 5: in any direction. So these rats are going to benefit

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Speaker 5: probably from the bounty of what that that busy street

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Speaker 5: with the restaurant's offers.

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Speaker 3: From there, Doctor Corgan and I left the park and

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Speaker 3: we kept on truck, and our walk about continued down

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Speaker 3: one of the side streets nearby. So in the park

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Speaker 3: you were looking for hard surfaces that they could borrow under.

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Speaker 3: Now we're walking on sidewalk and there's asphalt streets to

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Speaker 3: the left. What are you looking for here?

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Speaker 5: What I'm looking for here is as sidewalks ass mentulia.

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Speaker 5: As they get older themselves, we will see the old

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Speaker 5: sidewalk is deteriorating, right, and.

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Speaker 3: So corner's kind of falling apart is just missing.

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Speaker 5: You know. For me, every time I see any kind

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Speaker 5: of a shadow or a crack, you know, when I

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Speaker 5: walk with my wife sometimes we're going someplace fun for

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Speaker 5: dinner or something, and she can tell. She can tell like, Okay,

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Speaker 5: you're looking for rats. You know, we're gonna have a

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Speaker 5: good time. Right, I'm like, you bet, we're gonna have

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Speaker 5: a great time. So you know, it's hard to shut

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Speaker 5: it off sometimes, I guess, is my point, you know,

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Speaker 5: but that's I don't know the world of a rodentologist.

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Speaker 5: It's how can you shut it off? So you know,

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Speaker 5: here we have this you know, cobblestone, and it's very active.

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Speaker 5: Yeah you know we can see yeah, thank you. Here

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Speaker 5: he said it's a home for rats. He must live here,

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Speaker 5: so so it's very you know, it's in our face

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Speaker 5: all the time, all the time.

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Speaker 3: In a city that's getting older, there are holes and

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Speaker 3: harbors for rats all over the place. After maybe twenty

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Speaker 3: minutes with doctor Corrigan, I couldn't stop myself from interrupting

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Speaker 3: him every couple of minutes or so, what's that? What

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Speaker 3: about that one? These little holes and cracks in the sidewalk,

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Speaker 3: I just couldn't stop seeing them. But he told me

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Speaker 3: that there are some simple telltale signs to tell the

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Speaker 3: difference between a hole and a home.

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Speaker 5: So that's ale and it's very active. And the reason

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Speaker 5: you would know, as a rat detective kind of thing,

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Speaker 5: that is very active as when rats travel, one is

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Speaker 5: they lose hair, with two is their coats are always

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Speaker 5: dirty and greasy, and they don't have shampoo, so as

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Speaker 5: they come and go, you will notice.

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Speaker 4: Right here a grease stain.

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Speaker 3: There is this little oblong hole right on the edge

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Speaker 3: of the sidewalk, and it has this kind of dark

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Speaker 3: brownish grayish, vaguely shiny but too dirty to be called

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Speaker 3: shiny splotch just to the right of it. And that's

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Speaker 3: how he knew that this was a rat port of entry.

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Speaker 4: The grease stain.

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Speaker 2: Disgusting, illuminating. Rebecca, you told me about this recently, and

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Speaker 2: I saw the photo you took, and I have to

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Speaker 2: say it really changed things for me. I've told everyone,

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Speaker 2: my parents, my roommates, I am always on the lookout

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Speaker 2: for that grease stain.

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Speaker 6: Though.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's now a regular part of my nightly walks

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Speaker 4: is to look for these grease stains. I.

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Speaker 1: However, am going to do everything I can not to

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Speaker 1: see any grease stains.

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Speaker 3: Well for anyone who's also looking for other signs, maybe

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Speaker 3: there's not a grease stain, but you still feel convinced

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Speaker 3: that there's a ratneath that sidewalk. Doctor Corgan told me

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Speaker 3: that's another telltale sign. As the rats tunnel they leave

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Speaker 3: the sidewalk without support underneath, they dig out all the

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Speaker 3: dirt and so then there's just empty space and that

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Speaker 3: can't hold up the heavy sidewalk, so it just cracks

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Speaker 3: under the weight.

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Speaker 5: Rebecca.

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Speaker 1: This leads to one of the other big questions I had,

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Speaker 1: which is, in a city like New York, just how

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Speaker 1: many rats are there under the streets?

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Speaker 3: Wes. I'm going to do you the favor that doctor

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Speaker 3: Corrigan did for me. I'm gonna let you down easy.

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Speaker 3: Nobody knows.

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Speaker 5: Is there a method to quantify the number of rats

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Speaker 5: in the city. The answers, No, there's a lot of

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Speaker 5: tunnels lower feet and they go every single which way,

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Speaker 5: and they're piled on top of each other and this

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Speaker 5: kind of thing. They're tunnel shaped mammals. And so when

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Speaker 5: we built our cities around the world, all our cities

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Speaker 5: are like this. And it's not that the rats are

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Speaker 5: living inside the pipes, but when we put in a pipe,

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Speaker 5: we have to create a space for that.

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Speaker 1: No, I'm sorry, that is not an acceptable answer in

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Speaker 1: a podcast episode dedicated to getting rid of rats and cities.

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Speaker 1: So I'm gonna need at least a ballpark.

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Speaker 4: Figure this is the best we can do.

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Speaker 5: For you.

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Speaker 4: A study from twenty fourteen published in the Journal of

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Speaker 4: the Royal Statistical Society estimates that there are about two

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Speaker 4: million rats in New York City.

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Speaker 2: And I have to say this study from twenty fourteen

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Speaker 2: has gotten a lot of play. If you google Saxon

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Speaker 2: figures about how many rats are in America's big cities,

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Speaker 2: this is all you are going to get. I asked

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Speaker 2: Jared Brown in DC the same question. Here's what he

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Speaker 2: told me.

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Speaker 7: There's no way you can know how many rests in

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Speaker 7: that area, you know, so we just measure a complise,

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Speaker 7: but we know it is the increase in complaise those

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Speaker 7: increase in.

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Speaker 4: Rets, right.

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Speaker 3: That's basically what doctor Corgan was telling me. There's no

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Speaker 3: way to know how many rats there are because there's

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Speaker 3: no way to know where all the rats are. There's

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Speaker 3: just too many places that they could be.

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Speaker 5: So the amazing thing about the rat and its space

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Speaker 5: is if if the skull can fit through the rest

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Speaker 5: of the body, can do the limbo. So what you

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Speaker 5: need is a half inch height for a skull twelve

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Speaker 5: millimeters one basketball space can harbor an entire family of

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Speaker 5: rats because they like to hugger mugger together. And they

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Speaker 5: all get really close and inside the basketball They're like,

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Speaker 5: this is a great apartment, right, they can do that.

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Speaker 1: They're true New Yorkers, True, they are.

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Speaker 5: They're true New Yorkers, and true you know every.

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Speaker 1: Place after break rats hate this one simple effects.

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Speaker 5: So all over the world, you know, in my contacts

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Speaker 5: and my travels for the cities I do, surveys in

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Speaker 5: rat populations are up globally. We're not sure why, but

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Speaker 5: you know, the scientists we get together and we think

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Speaker 5: along these lines global warming. The winters are less severe.

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Speaker 5: Repeatedly for the past decade, we've had the warmest decade

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Speaker 5: in old history. That's one thing, too, is human populations

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Speaker 5: are increasing. More humans, more trash, more protein. Cities are

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Speaker 5: getting older, whatever city you want to pick, they're getting older.

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Speaker 5: As the city gets older, the infrastructures keep deteriorating. That's

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Speaker 5: why I pointed out the patries here. So as buildings deteriorate,

402
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Speaker 5: the foundations deteriorate, the suites deteriorate, infrastructure deteriorates, we create

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Speaker 5: more inaccessible harborages for an animal that only needs twelve

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Speaker 5: meli meters.

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Speaker 3: At this point in the walk about, I was kind

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Speaker 3: of starting to get it. Why killing the ones that

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Speaker 3: we can find just doesn't quite cut it. As far

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Speaker 3: as controlling the population, Doctor Corgan told me an example

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Speaker 3: of a better solution was in a pretty surprising place.

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Speaker 3: The pandemic.

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Speaker 5: You know, the city was shut down. All the cities

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Speaker 5: that Philadelphia was shut down, all the East coast cities,

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Speaker 5: the West coast, all the cities shut down for a

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Speaker 5: couple of months. We were like no restaurants. The rats

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Speaker 5: themselves were stressed. So when they used to come out

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Speaker 5: at night in any city and try to get food

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Speaker 5: in what used to be every night the dumpster had food,

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Speaker 5: well no more dumpster. They need food just like we

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Speaker 5: need food. So I was doing surveys right after the

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Speaker 5: pandemic shut down. I saw rats going at each other.

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Speaker 5: I saw rats attacking each other. I saw colonies comte

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Speaker 5: dely leave the area for parts unknon probably residential trash,

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Speaker 5: quite frankly. But after that we hurt them numbers. We

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Speaker 5: don't know by how many, probably hundreds of thousands, maybe

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Speaker 5: millions of rats to come during that period.

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Speaker 2: Also, Gerard Brown and DC told me earlier that COVID

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Speaker 2: led to a huge surge and residential trash because so

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Speaker 2: many people were working from home, so in DC, at

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Speaker 2: least in those early days, neighborhood rats had a field day.

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Speaker 2: But I guess the bottom line here is that there's

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Speaker 2: a direct link between the amount of garbage in an

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Speaker 2: area and the size of the rat population. Rats cannot

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Speaker 2: thrive without nearby trash. Remember how we said they only

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Speaker 2: travel a few hundred feet. That means in a place

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Speaker 2: like New York City, rats who'd made restaurant leftovers their

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Speaker 2: food staple were down on their luck in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and rat populations here in New York actually fell

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Speaker 4: to historic lows during lockdow. But as the city came back,

439
00:25:02,560 --> 00:25:06,359
Speaker 4: so did the rat population big time. Rebecca and I

440
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 4: got a chance to speak to New York City's Sanitation Commissioner,

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00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 4: Jessica Tish. She told us that budget cuts to the

442
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 4: department early in the pandemic made a city already famous

443
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 4: for filth even dirtier, which made a perfect breeding ground

444
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 4: for rat resurgence.

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00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 8: I think most New Yorkers noticed that the city got

446
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:29,359
Speaker 8: meaningfully dirtier, and we are intent on cleaning it up.

447
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 6: One of the reasons the city.

448
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:34,479
Speaker 8: Got dirtier during the pandemic to my mind, is at

449
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 8: the very beginning of it. The cleanliness function was completely

450
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 8: defunded from the Department of Sanitation, and those are their

451
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 8: basic bread and butter services, So things like clearing out

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00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 8: the litter baskets so that they don't overflow on street corners,

453
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 8: sweeping the streets so that our curb lines aren't riddled

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00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:02,520
Speaker 8: with litter, cleaning the highway on an off ramps. Those

455
00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 8: basic things were completely cut at the beginning of the

456
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 8: pandemic in March or April of twenty twenty, and Mayor

457
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 8: Adams not only restored them, but funded them at the

458
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 8: highest levels that New York City has ever seen.

459
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 4: And Mayor Eric Adams famously hates rats. Everyone that knows

460
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 4: me they know one thing.

461
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 2: I hate rats.

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00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 5: I hate rats.

463
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,880
Speaker 4: I'm terrified of rats so much so that New York

464
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 4: is actually hiring a rats Are to take charge of

465
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 4: all things road and control related. The job postings asking

466
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 4: for someone and I quote somewhat bloodthirsty who's able to

467
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 4: burrow into the depths of city government to get the

468
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 4: job done. Commissioner Tish says that managing our waste equals

469
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 4: managing the rat population, and New York produces a lot

470
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 4: of trash.

471
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 6: To give you some context, keep in mind that every

472
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 6: day New Yorkers put out twenty four million pounds of

473
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 6: trash and recycling on our curbs.

474
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 4: That's every day, every single day.

475
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 8: That is twenty four million pounds that sits on our

476
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:15,920
Speaker 8: curbs for fourteen hours a day.

477
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 4: It's a lot, but that's about to change. A new

478
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 4: policy that starts in April is really going to cut

479
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 4: down on the amount of time those bags sit out

480
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 4: and the rats, they are not going to be happy

481
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 4: about it.

482
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 8: We know that one third of all material in the

483
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 8: black bags is organic waste, it's food, and so you

484
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 8: can see how shrinking the amount of time that those

485
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 8: black bags sit on the curb will actually make quite

486
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 8: a meaningful difference in how the city looks and feels,

487
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 8: to say nothing of the fact that the black bags

488
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 8: right now serve as the all you can.

489
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 6: Eat buffet for rats. It's like the all night, all

490
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:56,199
Speaker 6: you can eat buffet for rats.

491
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 8: And so one of the goals of shrinking the amount

492
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 8: of time time that the bags spend on the curb

493
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 8: is shutting down that all night, all you can eat

494
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 8: rat biffe, or at least dramatically limiting it's ours.

495
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 2: So here in DC, the impact of garbage and garbage

496
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 2: collection is definitely on people's minds, but we haven't seen

497
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 2: a change like the one in New York yet. There

498
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 2: are plenty of residents, though, who want to get ahead

499
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,719
Speaker 2: of this problem by changing up the way we handle

500
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 2: our trash. Like Kim Patterson, who is the Advisory Neighborhood

501
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 2: Commissioner for Brightwood. She goes one of a bunch of

502
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 2: community members who came by while the road and Control

503
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 2: team serviced the block.

504
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:37,919
Speaker 9: It's getting worse. There's garbage. You can see that the

505
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 9: garbage bins are not secure. The owner pays the fines

506
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 9: and still doesn't secure the cans. The residents are terrified

507
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 9: to throw their trash there. They open the door. There's rats.

508
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 9: Our trash cans are plastic. The rownas eat through them.

509
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 9: Just give us a new can.

510
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 4: We have all these rules.

511
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 9: There's a hole in the can that the homeowner did

512
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 9: not cause, it was the rat. Also, the trash cans

513
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 9: that are public, they are open. There's no lid. Let's

514
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 9: get some type of control where the trash can be

515
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 9: in closed so the rest don't fest and feast every night.

516
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, poisons all well and good as an immediate solution.

517
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 3: If you've got a problem, you've got to handle it.

518
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 3: But controlling the rat's food supply aka the trash supply,

519
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 3: can cut their population down at the source. The only

520
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 3: problem with that it requires a serious amount of buy

521
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 3: in from all of us.

522
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 5: If you give the rat one bad property out of

523
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 5: ten beautiful properties, that one bad property will feed the

524
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 5: entire block rats just that one property. The whole block

525
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 5: comes down based on one bad neighbor. It takes everybody

526
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 5: to be honest with you, and most people do not

527
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 5: want to be involved in rat control duties. When they

528
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 5: get up every day, it's the last thing on their

529
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 5: radar screen, you know. And there's the weakness nobody gets.

530
00:29:57,960 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 5: Some says, gee, I wonder if I should do a

531
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 5: rat serving my own property and cut it off at

532
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 5: the past. Everyone says, gee, I have rats. They pick

533
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 5: up the phone, pick up the yellow pages, so to speak,

534
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 5: and call somebody to put out some poison.

535
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: Thanks to Catherine, Rebecca and Sam, and thanks to you

536
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: for listening to us here at the Big Take. It's

537
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: a daily podcast from Ploomberg and iHeartRadio for more shows

538
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

539
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,479
Speaker 1: you listen, and we'd love to hear from you. Email

540
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 1: us questions or comments to Big Take at ploomberg dot net.

541
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Bergalina,

542
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Katherine Fink, our producer is Rebecca Shassan,

543
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: and our associate producer is Sam Gebauer. Raphael I'm Seely

544
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: is our engineer. Our original music was composed by Leo

545
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: Sidrin I'm west Kasova. We'll be back tomorrow with another

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00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: Big Take.

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00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 2: H