Sunset Park residents fed up with rats
Locals blame infestation on recent subway station makeovers
BY JESSICA PARKS
Rats are infesting the
streets of Sunset Park, according
to 50th Street residents,
who claim the critters
are scurrying across occupied
stoops and chewing through
concrete on a daily basis.
“Rats are walking across
our stoop just oblivious to us
sitting there,” said Fred Manas,
a 32-year resident of the
neighborhood. “They just hop
house to house looking for
open trash bins.”
The neighbors say the problem
dates back to 2017, when
the reopening of the madeover
53rd and 59th street subway
stations drove the rodents
to their block — a part of the
rodent’s route to restaurantrich
Fifth Avenue from commercially
dominant Fourth
Avenue.
“The rat problem over the
last three years has gotten
abysmal,” Manas said. “By
opening up the subway they
let all the rats out … with Fifth
Avenue one block away, where
do you think they are going for
free food?”
Calls to 311 and the area’s
elected representatives have
proved futile, residents claim,
and the problem has only
worsened since the start of the
coronavirus pandemic, when
alternative side parking rules
were suspended and much of
the city’s sanitation programs
underwent severe cuts.
“It has become exacerbated
by the slowdown in trash pickups,
COURIER L 16 IFE, AUGUST 21-27, 2020
in cleanings … due to
the pandemic,” Manas said.
“There is nothing happening
on the city-side.”
Residents say illegal food
vendors who dispose of their
trash in the city’s receptacles
and neighbors who don’t properly
contain their garbage also
compound the issue.
“It’s all just food for the
rats,” Manas said.
Another neighbor, Alexandra
De Mesones, said she
has had to pay out of her own
pocket to repair the damage
wrought by the relentless rodents
as they attempted to
break into her trash cans by
chewing through her concrete
and burrowing into her stoop.
“Pieces of brownstone were
broken and scattered, cracks
were opening,” said De Mesones,
whose home has been
in her family since 1946. “The
rats were trying to get in, trying
to break through from under
the ground.”
And despite her efforts, it is
business as usual for the rats
who are again chewing holes
in her concrete, she said.
“Right after he fi nished
closing up the hole, they reopened
it,” De Mesones said.
“The main hole is reopened.”
Assemblymember Felix
Ortiz told Brooklyn Paper
that, while he has been working
diligently to rid his district
of the rodents, the issue
can be tricky as rats are an inevitable
nuisance on most construction
sites in the city.
“When the MTA started
all the construction and movement
inside the subway stations
to rebuild, that is when
all this momentum of rats began
to run all over the place,”
Ortiz said, adding that the
agency can’t poison the vermin
“because they don’t know
where they are going to bite.”
The 25-year assemblyman,
representing Brooklyn’s 51st
District, said discussions with
related agencies were tabled
during the pandemic, but
he will raise the issue with
Mayor Bill de Blasio as early
as Aug. 18.
“I am going to probably see
the mayor at some point today
and I will mention it again to
his people,” Ortiz said Tuesday.
Councilman Carlos
Menchaca, the Department of
Health and the MTA did not
respond to requests for comment.
RAT’S GROSS: A critter scurries along 50th Street in broad daylight.
Fred Manas