Above: There's a rat in that photo someplace. Can you see him hiding?
Alerted by a blog reader, who e-mailed me that he had seen near sunset at least half-a-dozen rats scurrying around the bushes on the northeast side of the Oval lawn in the vegetation island between the gravel path and the asphalt walkway, I braced myself for the worst and hurried outside with my camera to see if 1) I could verify the report and 2) take a photo of the revolting show of rat force.
Indeed, when I arrived I noticed at least two rats in that area darting from undergrowth to undergrowth, and a bit further away another rat. (I assume they were rats, as they were not sparrow-size like mice.) Unfortunately, the light at this time was poor and my camera not up to the task of taking clear photos of speeding or lurking rodents in the dismal light, so a better photographer with a better apparatus will have to get the job done.
Be that as it may, this is disgusting evidence of what the "planning" of the landlord, Tishman Speyer, has done to this complex. The allowance of large-size picnics and carefree eating on the Oval lawn (started by MetLife before they left and further exasperated by Tishman Speyer's open-to-the-public attitude toward the Oval), the massive infusion of vegetation which just harbors rodents and their families (which is why MetLife got rid of profuse vegetation in front of buildings), a weekly Farmer's Market at the Oval, and even the careless pickup of dog waste (rats find food in dog feces) are contributing to the infestation of rodents at the Oval, with, no doubt, an expansion of the rat/mice population to other parts of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.
It's really sad, but we are heading toward becoming a slum if something isn't done about this rat problem NOW. Shame on you, Jerry and Rob Speyer, for not having the foresight that this would happen and not doing anything much about it as the problem progressed through the months.
9 comments:
The reduction of the maintenance staff has made this problem much worse than it should be. Garbage is left to pile up all weekend in the outdoor garbage cans and in the indoor recycling areas. Tenants moved out of the building today and left a huge pile of garbage in the carriage room including the leftover contents of their kitchen ! A pile of discarded junk was also left in the Terrace hallway.
I saw random furniture discarded all around the property.
If management is going to have these end of the month "lease churning" parties, then they need to have staff on hand to clean up after them. It's getting ridiculous, and at this pace the rats will soon be moving indoors.
I don't know what was going on, but my building absolutely stank of rotting garbage all day yesterday. I saw the maintenance person (who has other buildings to care for as well as ours) lumbering huge carts full of garbage from the recycling area into the back room where they store it. As fast as she cleaned the area it was filled up again. A lot of kitchen foodstuff that should have been bagged and put down the garbage chute. The elevators stank of garbage. I don't know why unless it was because the "kids" who have overrun he building like to bring all their stinky garbage down to the recycling area in big black, oozing bags rather than put it in small bags and put it down the chute. I have seen several rats running around the outside my building, especially in the evening. Their holes are clearly visible too.
I've seen rats on 3 different occassions in exactly the location you are describing. They were so big at first I thought it was a squirrel.
And people love to lie on the grass soaking up the sun along with the dog, squirrel, rat and pidgeon pee and poo! Plus they eat their food there! Paradise indeed!
Hi. I'm the person who sent the e-mail to Stuy Town Reporter. Yesterday I was sitting on the bench in that area and suddenly felt something hit the bench. I thought it was a squirrel who had jumped onto it, causing the noise, but there was no squirrel around. The bump and noise happened again a moment later. Again I looked around but there was no squirrel. So I got up and looked in the area in back of the bench and started seeing a rat running around--and then another! Then I saw a third one! It was almost a horror movie, with rats coming out of whatever hell they live in. As I walked away, I noticed another rat, but this time in the lawn area near the pathway. I took a stroll around the Oval and spotted another rat on the other side! And it wasn't even nighttime when one figures that rats would feel safe to come out. What's going on here?
I think the presence of so many rats can be blamed on the eating that's going on in the Oval. Garbage and pieces of food are left over and only cleaned up the next day. So that's many hours in which these rats feed themselves on these leftovers. It's truly sickening.
Wasn't the second rats photo originally published on Lux Living? Don't you have the creativity and intelligence to find your own material for without stealing from other blogs??? Guess not!
Nice try. It's taken from this site:
http://weblog.sinteur.com/2007/02/25/
and is an AP photo of the KFC-Taco Bell store in Greenwich Village. I guess Luxie was into lifting it too! Now go back to your side of the aisle, please.
WOW... this is completely terrible! And love the little Reporter-Lux bickering by the way.. aweessomme, if nothing else living here gets us into the drama
You may have seen nothing yet, Fer! I'm preparing a very eye-opening post.
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