Word: ratting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...wants to set poisoned baits inside - winter is the best time to exterminate, since rat populations are already reduced by the cold and relative lack of food. "But don't worry. We'll find a way to get in there," he says...
What was needed was a more coordinated effort - one that targeted all the nests on a block or in a neighborhood. Just as important, the strategy had to involve all the relevant government agencies. Rats found on the edge of Central Park, for example, might be living in a nearby subway station and dining on garbage left on the sidewalk by a grocery store or restaurant. Getting rid of that rat population would require collaboration between the three city agencies that govern the subway, the park and the sidewalks - an endeavor that has gotten easier since the mayor's office...
...effort doesn't end there. After the cleanup, local residents and businesses are responsible for plugging up the vacant rat holes and keeping their garbage covered. To do all that, however, they have to know exactly where the rats are to begin with...
Enter the rat map. On a recent patrol, Mills and his colleague Bobby Corrigan, a doctor of rodentology who also works for the New York City health department, were back in the Bronx, on West 184th Street. The target was an abandoned house sprayed over with graffiti - a vestige of the way much of New York used to look 20 years...
...holes in the front yard were obvious rat burrows, and there were lots of them. Mills pointed out freshly dug dirt from one of them - evidence that the hole had probably been active the night before. Further confirmation: tiny droppings in the corner where the chain-link fence meets the front wall of the house. "I've been trying to get into that house for the past three to four months," Mills says of the boarded-up building...