[HN Gopher] New York City hiring top rat killer
___________________________________________________________________
New York City hiring top rat killer
Author : yehudalouis
Score : 103 points
Date : 2022-12-01 17:53 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (a002-oom03.nyc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (a002-oom03.nyc.gov)
| theGnuMe wrote:
| queue the movie about this: Caddyshack 2.0
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I hope it does not end like this:
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.atlasobscura.com/articles/h...
| dang wrote:
| Discussed a few times:
|
| _The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 Did Not Go as Planned
| (2017)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30050420 - Jan
| 2022 (4 comments)
|
| _The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 Did Not Go as Planned
| (2017)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27264816 - May
| 2021 (85 comments)
|
| _The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 Did Not Go as Planned
| (2017)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19864148 - May
| 2019 (18 comments)
|
| _The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 Did Not Go as Planned_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14499431 - June 2017 (1
| comment)
| tiahura wrote:
| How about training and equipping qualified volunteers to hunt
| with air rifles and offering a bounty?
| itisit wrote:
| The last thing NYC needs is people walking around with air
| rifles.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| Jeeze, you must really hate freedom. Also, according to the
| nra, crime would be reduced.
| paxys wrote:
| If your goal is to shoot more people than rats, sure.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| Provides a perverse incentive for people to breed rats/cobra
| effect [1]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive#The_origina...
| tiahura wrote:
| That's why I restricted to a limited pool - it might make
| oversight feasible?
| fakedang wrote:
| If NYC needs someone who can deal with their rats, they should
| look west and think about hiring Richard Hendricks.
| baidifnaoxi wrote:
| Is this talking about rodents or another kind of rat?
| bergenty wrote:
| ralusek wrote:
| Christopher Walken from Mouse Hunt.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > ... 5-8 years of full-time professional experience in a field
| related to this position.
|
| Rat killing is a field?
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Animal/pest control is
| zokier wrote:
| Pest/rodent control? Definitely a field. Although I suspect
| they are meaning public administration here.
| bombcar wrote:
| Perhaps they mean literally 5-8 years standing in a field
| killing rats in said field. Because then you'd be outstanding
| in your field.
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| Very good.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| well, yes. pest and rodent removal and such.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| Alberta, Canada maintains a team of dedicated rat exterminators
| paid for by the province. Along with a near genocidal
| government policy towards rats.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/alberta-ca...
| RickJWagner wrote:
| I bet the successful candidate will sound just like Bogey:
|
| "You.... dirty rat!"
| schwartzworld wrote:
| That's James Cagney, not Bogart
| adamsb6 wrote:
| Is this guerilla marketing for the new King of the Hill series?
| daveslash wrote:
| Only two people need apply: Dale Gribble of Dale's Dead-Bug
| and.... Rusty Shackleford.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| They should hire Joseph Carter, better known as the Mink Man!
|
| I still can't believe he went from someone I stumbled across on
| YouTube in a low-quality shaky-cam video 10 years ago (or was it
| more?) to making NYT headlines (and he deserves it):
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/30/science/mink-animals-pest...
|
| His YouTube channel:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/josephcartertheminkman
| calculatte wrote:
| To be most successful, you need to start with the rats at city
| hall
| andylei wrote:
| but also
|
| > Proficiency with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint
| terminatornet wrote:
| to me, the people at city hall are more clown-like, which would
| require some sort of clown exterminator.
| ericzawo wrote:
| "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others."
| monrir wrote:
| "Successful candidates must be highly organized, able to burrow
| into the depths of city government"
| mnutt wrote:
| Living in NYC with rats, I'm always reminded of Neal Stephenson's
| Baroque Cycle, where Jack Shaftoe is in Paris in the late 17th
| century and meets St-George, the city's preeminent rat-catcher.
| St-George explains how no one is never going to exterminate _all_
| of the rats, so he instead only kills the bad kind of rats and
| lets the "good" rats live, in a sort of multi-generational rat
| breeding program. St-George says that he has been doing this for
| many years, and his father before him, and his father before
| that. Jack asks, "how do you know the rats aren't breeding YOU?"
| prox wrote:
| I had a similar thought today when feeding some crows. Usually
| they don't like it when other people show up, and they leave or
| hide for a bit in a tree or some such. So by proxy _I_ don't
| like having people around since we all have to wait. It's a
| nice bit of converged purpose I guess where I adapt my behavior
| as well. Most people who go there are usually oblivious of any
| birds. They just don't see it.
| FeistySkink wrote:
| What do you feed to crows? I feed other birds, but crows
| never eat the same type of bird food.
| Wistar wrote:
| I have found that they like dry, unsalted popcorn. They
| also like small kibbled dog food, and really go nuts over
| dried cranberries and unsalted almonds. If there are
| sunflower seeds in the mix, they are always the last to be
| eaten.
| FeistySkink wrote:
| Them be some fancy crows. I go nuts for everything above,
| save for the dog food (never tried, TBH). Thanks, I'll
| try cranberries and almonds.
| Wistar wrote:
| The dog food is often the first to go. I tried it just
| out of curiosity and found that they quite like it.
|
| They also like vol-au-vent or other canape.
| yetanotherloser wrote:
| I think (with apologies to Gerald Samper) that they might
| actually prefer vole-au-vents.
| datavirtue wrote:
| You've never had dog food! You gotta live, man!
| prox wrote:
| An expert recommended it above most things. They like
| some insects above all, but sunflower seeds mostly. They
| _pretend_ to like bread, but they usually hide it in a
| stash and don't eat it unless they really hungry.
| nomel wrote:
| My crow friends really liked egg yellows, cooked to a
| jelly like consistency. I would poach them a little extra
| long, so they weren't runny.
|
| The also liked dog food, but they would always dip it in
| water first.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Will they put the trash in containers that go were parked cars do
| today?
|
| If the answer is no, folks we're just wasting our time.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| Okay so New York is complaining about companies offering
| unreasonable salary ranges... And then they offer $120k - $170k!
| Like seriously that's a gigantic difference for the same one
| position.
|
| God damn NYC.
| nadieyninguno1 wrote:
| So with government jobs there is an expectation of a much
| longer tenure than the 3 year job hopper we have in
| programming.
|
| You'll start on the low end and get a 2k bump per year for a
| decade or two, eventually hitting the cap.
| aklein wrote:
| Kudos to the person who wrote the job description
| bredren wrote:
| There is a fascinating history of rats in New York City provided
| in the book, Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the
| City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants.
|
| The author, Robert Sullivan, delivers the influence of rats and
| ratting on the American Revolution. It goes so far as to draw a
| connection between rats and the Boston Massacre, IIRC.
|
| It made me look at rats in a new way, I highly recommend this
| book.
| cuttothechase wrote:
| This honestly appears to be a very difficult problem to solve. It
| seems that to be truly be effective in rat reduction at a city
| scale the fix may need to come from elsewhere and may have very
| little to do with directly working on exterminating the rats.
| Fixes may be needed starting from urban planning through
| waste/sewage handling methods at a street level all the way up to
| the city. Also not sure if there would be enough leverage and
| incentives for any candidate who is going to be hired for this
| job at their advertised $120K to be able to achieve that kind of
| a change! Seems like another easy win for the rats at the tax
| payers expense!
| lizardactivist wrote:
| First, it's NY, the dirtiest city in the world and planet earth's
| own asshole.
|
| Second, if the city hasn't realized they need to introduce
| containerized and properly sealed garbage collection city-wide by
| now, they never will.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Please. NYC doesn't have half the needles and shit that
| Philly/San Francisco have. You can at least breathe the air
| unlike Delhi or Beijing.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| If only rats had a natural enemy:
|
| https://tenor.com/view/killer-upset-kitty-gun-meme-gif-86573...
| skorpeon87 wrote:
| Dogs, like rat terriers, are much more effective for
| exterminating rats.
| huehehue wrote:
| There's a group that does this, but supposedly has not made
| much of an impact on the city's rat population and the
| practice has stirred some controversy (content warning: dead
| rats)
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/19/new-york-
| cit...
| superchroma wrote:
| If only there was a natural enemy of rats that didn't spread
| toxoplasmosis and cat scratch fever.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| https://www.legalnomads.com/istanbul-cats/
|
| "In addition, the documentary looks into the history of cat
| domestication, and how in the middle ages the church tried to
| get rid of cats due to their association with witches"
|
| only difference is, now it's "toxoplasmosis and cat scratch
| fever" instead of witches.
|
| Do you have numbers on the prevalence of those ills? As
| compared to well-known rat-borne illness?
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the rat killing nature of cats is way
| overstated. Also, in an urban environment where they can much
| more easily find food thrown in trash, etc., they are unlikely
| to make an effort to kill rats to obtain that food. Finally, a
| sufficient cat population that could eradicate a rat problem
| would likely eradicate the bird population first.
| buzzedword wrote:
| Feels like a job for Vasiliy Fet.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y4v1l5np_o
| interdrift wrote:
| 120k to efficiently exterminate rats? Dang, I'd love to do that
| lol
| paxys wrote:
| 120k isn't even going to get you an apartment in large parts of
| NYC.
| alar44 wrote:
| Yes it will, easily. Just not in Manhattan.
| acuozzo wrote:
| So you take NJ Transit into Port Authority like everyone else
| does.
| interdrift wrote:
| That's OK, I'm quite frugal, don't mind travelling with
| public transport. Even if you save 50% of that it's already
| enough for me.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| "The rats are absolutely going to hate this announcement. But the
| rats don't run this city. We do" has become a top tier audio
| meme. I think I hear this in my head about as often as I see "(x)
| Doubt" or "This is fine (dog engulfed in flames)"
|
| NYC really did a great job with the marketing on this.
|
| I think the real reason TikTok was successful is it popularized
| the audio/video meme and the means for them to go viral.
|
| https://www.indy100.com/viral/rats-dont-run-this-city-we-do-...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Whatever it popularized is the exact opposite of what
| entertains me. I was recently sent a link to tiktok that was a
| video set to random music of a single screenshot of a single
| tweet.
|
| My younger self had higher hopes for humanity.
| yehudalouis wrote:
| Any good ideas on how you'd implement a rat extermination
| strategy?
| skizm wrote:
| Release a bunch of snakes?
| djmips wrote:
| That always goes well.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Good job security thinking. You can claim success and then
| get re-hired for a job posting to "exterminate an infestation
| of snakes in the city"
| teeray wrote:
| After retiring from the FBI, Neville Flynn (Samuel L.
| Jackson) takes a job as a motorman on an NYC subway.
| Meanwhile, the city hires the top rat exterminator in the
| country (Christopher Walken) who uses the unconventional
| technique of releasing thousands of vipers into the city's
| sewers.
|
| Coming this summer... Snakes on a Train
| aliqot wrote:
| this guy https://www.youtube.com/@ShawnWoodsprimitive-archer
| swinnipeg wrote:
| Unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes
| Victerius wrote:
| How do we get the Chinese needle snakes under control once
| they're done with the rats though?
| Bouncingsoul1 wrote:
| We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on
| snake meat.
| wolfram74 wrote:
| Which will promptly freeze to death during the first
| winter snow.
| autotune wrote:
| At which point we release the polar bears to continue the
| fight.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Rats can find food anywhere in many forms, so instead of
| poisoning them (which just removes competition for food from
| the rest of them), addict them to a substance you can control,
| distribute it everywhere freely and accessibly for a while -
| and then once a large enough population of them are addicted,
| you create scarcity in the substance, and they will starve
| themselves and fight each other and breed less frequently in
| pursuit of it. If the population starts rising again, release
| more of the drug to get more of them addicted to it and repeat
| the cycle.
|
| Spray the sewers and garbage bins with nicotine or seized
| cocaine or some addictive equivalent. Killing them just kills
| off the weak ones and polarizes the population, whereas a
| method like this using managed addiction will keep their
| numbers down and actively managed.
| FinalDestiny wrote:
| We call Charlie Kelly
| reducesuffering wrote:
| King of the Rats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2MvHuflizQ
| ogoparootbbo wrote:
| only caveat is the troll's toll
| ars wrote:
| Food. It's all about food.
|
| You basically need to clean the city. I've been there in the
| summer - the place stinks to high heaven from uncollected
| rotting food, I don't know how the locals handle it.
|
| You'll never be able to trap or kill your way out of this, rats
| are too smart, and breed too quickly.
| bagels wrote:
| There are mountains of garbage on the New York sidewalks all
| the time. It should surprise nobody that rats love this.
| paxys wrote:
| Clean up the city and rats will disappear by themselves. At the
| moment you can't walk through NYC without running into large
| piles of garbage on every sidewalk. No shit there's a rodent
| problem.
| rayiner wrote:
| When I got to NYC from Chicago for an internship I spent the
| first few weeks just marveling and taking pictures of the
| trash piles and sending them back to my then-girlfriend.
| "Honey, this one is even taller than the last one!"
| bombcar wrote:
| > But it gives me stuff to talk about with my friends Like
| "Hey, I think them rats gettin' big!"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH5l9NYtNAw
| raddan wrote:
| The garbage situation in Manhattan is ridiculous. Mountains
| of garbage appear every night. It's not surprising that they
| have a rat problem. Plenty of other cities have addressed
| this problem directly. As far as I can tell, NYC simply does
| not have the political will.
|
| It's frankly an embarrassment. We advertise to the world the
| idea that NYC is one of America's best cities, and the first
| thing that people see upon arriving is mountains of trash.
| autotune wrote:
| And then New Yorkers have the gall to constantly make fun
| of Staten Island (disclaimer: I do not nor have I ever
| lived in SI).
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > And then New Yorkers have the gall to constantly make
| fun of Staten Island
|
| Well to be fair, Staten Island used to be the literal
| garbage dump for NYC, and being incorporated as the fifth
| borough was actually the reason this stopped (because
| it's illegal to dump trash within the city limits).
| autotune wrote:
| Right, but you kind of lose the right to make fun of it
| when the garbage dump moved from SI to right in front of
| your door step, and everyone else's. One fond memory back
| when I lived in Manhattan is being at a small, classy,
| cocktail bar that served nice drinks with an excellent
| street view of garbage bags being piled up right in front
| that ruined it all.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I did live there and on a single family block in queens.
| Typically there was two pickups a week with people using
| metal cans in those days. There were plenty of rats.
|
| Where people go, rats follow. If you think that your
| town/city/building doesn't have rats, you are wrong.
|
| HN commenters don't have all of the answers. Garbage bags
| on the street are a nuisance, but not the problem.
| floxy wrote:
| >If you think that your town/city/building doesn't have
| rats, you are wrong.
|
| I've never even seen a feral rat in real life. Might make
| for an interesting Ask HN poll. Estimate how frequently
| you see rats. - Haven't yet - Once
| per decade - Once a year - Once a month
| - Once a week - Daily
|
| Squirrels, yup, lots of them around. And I've seen plenty
| of mice in my life, and I'm assuming that's what the owls
| are eating. Beavers? Check. But no rats in 40+ years.
| YMMV.
| autotune wrote:
| My point was not that SI is a shining example of a
| garbage free paradise, more so that them making fun of it
| considering their own problems is hypocritical at best.
| vagabund wrote:
| They've recently hired McKinsey to conduct a 20 week study
| on the viability of containerization on the varying street
| sizes of Manhattan, and what that might look like [0]. My
| guess: they settle upon some aesthetically loud behemoth of
| a trash container that's neither well-functioning nor
| beautifying, and approve an attendant increase in the
| sanitation department's budget to deal with the new
| responsibility. But at least it will be better than the
| status quo ex ante.
|
| [0] https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-orders-4-million-
| mckinsey-stu...
| ThePadawan wrote:
| > "NYC doesn't have the political will to do anything"
|
| > "NYC recently hired McKinsey to conduct a 20 week
| study"
|
| I mean, do I have to say anything else? The joke writes
| itself.
| notacop31337 wrote:
| If you did a comedy show with zingers like this, I'd turn
| up.
| rayiner wrote:
| NYC is mainly a halfway house for immigrants passing
| through. It pretty much always has been. A lot of my
| extended family started out there (it's got the largest
| Bangladeshi population in the country) but fled to Long
| Island or Texas or California once they got their feet
| under them.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| In other cities, mountains of garbage pile up in alleyways
| or other just-off-the-street venues. Since there basically
| are no alleyways in Manhattan, the garbage goes in the
| street instead. I'm not sure the rats care very much either
| way.
| asdff wrote:
| In other cities they provide trash bins and dumpsters.
| Only in NYC do you just put a bag of trash on the side of
| the road. My city doesn't even take anything that isn't
| in a bin that you haven't specifically ordered pickup for
| (like a big couch)
| notacop31337 wrote:
| Wait what are you on about? Are you serious that you just
| stick bin bags on the street full? Where are the bins?
| What?
|
| I'm not from NYC or even the US, why wouldn't you just
| use bins that the bags go in? I don't understand, please
| help me understand this. I'm thoroughly confused.
| bombcar wrote:
| Trash in NY is literally piled up for collection.
|
| https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=new+york+trash
|
| Most cities in the USA have either individual trash cans
| (suburbs/low density, once a week):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UluH0QmnwfM (ONE HOUR???)
| or dumpsters/dedicated crushers (high density, can be
| once a day): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDTrUs6TeNc
| [deleted]
| mnutt wrote:
| The sidewalks aren't wide enough for the kinds of bins
| needed for the amount of trash generated (NYC is dense)
| and nobody wants to give up free parking spaces to put
| the bins in the street as of yet.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| You live in an apartment building that's 47 stories tall
| and has 350 units. Do you expect all of the residents
| individually to take bins out to the front of the
| building?
| macNchz wrote:
| Yes, having thin plastic bags of food waste out on the
| street for hours every single night is quite clearly the
| fundamental issue. To me, there's an obvious path forward
| in removing a few free parking spaces on each block and
| replacing them with rat-proof containers, and reorganizing
| the sanitation department support collecting from bins
| rather than bags on the sidewalk.
|
| The political will is key here, since to effectively fix
| the issue someone will need to stand up to the sanitation
| union, who will be concerned that this new paradigm will
| require fewer workers, as well as to the thousands of
| seething car owners who will fight tooth and nail to keep
| their free parking spaces. So far, nobody has wanted to
| take on this challenge, and so the residents live with
| filth as the rats continue to feast!
| atyppo wrote:
| Lack of political will and corruption are NYC (and by
| extension NYS') biggest problems. It's incredible how
| little progress is made here, how expensive projects are,
| and how long it takes compared to even other union-heavy
| areas like France. In this case, it would likely require
| significant investment to create central trash receptacles
| on each block and require taking parking spaces. Both of
| which NYC politicans are too pathetic to push for.
| wskish wrote:
| Delivery logistics have advanced dramatically and is trending
| towards near-realtime. For everything that is delivered, some
| non-trivial percentage of that needs to be taken away as
| trash. But there is no incentive to improve trash pickup
| logistics.
|
| Perhaps we could pass laws that require anyone delivering
| something (hi Amazon) to also take away some proportional
| amount of trash, removing the externality they currently
| enjoy. I am sure they would eventually be a lot more
| efficient at it than the current system.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| "Clean up the city" in this case means to change the behavior
| of 9 million people and every single visitor. It would be
| easier to train the rats operate the subway system.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| There are tons of rats in the subways, and until the MTA puts
| up a platform wall or something like that, they're not going
| away because they live off the food people throw on the
| tracks.
| notatoad wrote:
| a few tips here: https://www.alberta.ca/rat-control-
| methods.aspx
| Euphorbium wrote:
| Release a bunch of cats.
| bberenberg wrote:
| If you like cats and the general population are willing to feed
| and take care of them. Istanbul has proven this approach to be
| a fairly effective.
| freyes wrote:
| and if you play this card correctly can become yet another
| tourists attraction for NYC
| HeavenFox wrote:
| Birds aren't gonna like this plan though
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The birds are pests too. Well at least the pigeons are.
| Msw242 wrote:
| But the birds don't run this city. We do.
| vagabund wrote:
| some version of releasing CRISPR-edited rats that sexually
| outcompete in the first generation but produce infertile
| offspring
| nyolfen wrote:
| wasn't this the plot of jurassic park
| tetha wrote:
| That reminds me of the old movie Mimic, in which supposedly
| sterile insects are released to prey on other insects
| transmitting a disease to children. The infertility part
| didn't work and it got messy.
| christopherwxyz wrote:
| Basically Robert Patrick's T-1000 from Terminator 2, but
| instead of hunting humans it will optimize for rats.
| gs17 wrote:
| The optimal way to get rid of the rats is to eliminate the
| humans first so the rats do not have as much available food.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Reimaging a system generally eliminates any remote access
| tools, but if the ACPI Windows Platform Binary Table (an
| executable that lives in PC firmware by design that recent
| versions of Windows loads and runs automatically without
| ability to disable) has been compromised through a malicious
| firmware update to automatically install a RAT on power on, you
| may need to go so far as to manually flash the chip holding the
| firmware to a known non-compromised version. This is a highly
| technical operation and not for everyone.
|
| Not using ACPI-based Windows-intended hardware, which will
| unfortunately consist of most of the PC-based motherboards you
| can purchase on the market today, can help avoid this situation
| in the first place.
| [deleted]
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| arm the homeless with blowguns and pay a per pelt bounty. then
| gamify it and display the leader board in time square.
| batmansmom1 wrote:
| Enter: Homeless rat breeders, farming baby rat pelts for the
| reward
| FeistySkink wrote:
| Do we then track the confirmed kills with a blackchain?
| Perhaps we can have some kind of an exchange for pelts. Maybe
| even have a pelt token. I'll see myself out.
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| rat coin, ticker symbol RAT. backed by real world artisan
| rat pelts. each coin is actually an NFT representing the
| actual rat, in a goofy outfit of course. too bad blow guns
| are powered by the carbon dioxide emissions of people's
| lungs or we would have had the greatest stable coin the
| world has ever known
| FeistySkink wrote:
| I think we have a pitch for Sequoia ready. Perchance you
| play League of Legend?
| floxy wrote:
| Where can one find the GPT-3 PowerPoint pitch generator?
| https://thiselevatorpitchdoesnotexist.com seems
| available.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| You start by taking recordings of their ultra sonic squeaks, in
| particular the mating calls. Then you play these recordings
| back over loud speaker. As the conga line of horny rats waltzes
| in, BAM! Guillotine.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| There are three elements to reducing rat populations:
|
| Removing access to food, destruction of their warrens, and
| killing the rats themselves.
|
| New York City can not hope to begin on this while garbage
| disposal involves piling bags of trash on the sidewalk.
|
| Other cities address this by improving their dumpsters and
| garbage cans, and while that doesn't eliminate rats, it
| drastically reduces their population, and limits their ability
| to spread as quickly.
|
| After that it becomes possible to populations further by
| filling warrens and killing the actual rats.
| acomjean wrote:
| Somerville Ma is starting to use electric traps. It was
| pretty effective, but as long as there are meals the problem
| doesn't stop.
|
| https://www.boston.com/news/local-
| news/2022/11/15/somerville...
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| "Nuke the entire site from orbit--it's the only way to be sure"
| nxm wrote:
| Rats would still survive
| erikig wrote:
| Not just survive - thrive; you'll have taken out all their
| competition.
| nemo44x wrote:
| The qualifications for the role are very poor if you're looking
| for someone to be effective:
|
| > Bachelor's Degree required, preferably public policy, or
| related design fields, plus 5-8 years of full-time professional
| experience in a field related to this position
|
| > Swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and general aura of
| badassery
|
| Wouldn't you value someone who actually knows how to control
| vermin populations at scale in an urban environment? Why would
| you value someone who has a "public policy" degree. What even is
| that?
|
| And why does this person need to be a funny pirate? In essence,
| Jack Sparrow with a public policy degree appears to be the ideal
| candidate.
|
| To me it sounds like they're more interested in giving off the
| perception of doing something about the problem while
| entertaining the public about it, rather than actually solving
| the problem effectively.
| linuxftw wrote:
| The mayor's nephew needs a job and holds the degree, obviously.
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| You see a lot of private companies add silly qualifications
| like this as well. So I don't really think it indicates
| anything other than the dept in question trying to be more
| "hip".
|
| That being said, it seems clear now that everything from the
| Adams administration should be treated as "giving off the
| perception of doing something instead of solving the problem"
| until proven otherwise.
| scld wrote:
| >Wouldn't you value someone who actually knows how to control
| vermin populations at scale in an urban environment? Why would
| you value someone who has a "public policy" degree. What even
| is that?
|
| Probably because the real solution (not putting trash directly
| onto the streets like it's 1780) isn't going to happen, so a
| degree in public policy will help make it look like you're
| actually going to do something.
| conductr wrote:
| It's a management role. They want you to understand and
| navigate the bureaucracy involved in being a middle manager
| in city government. Negotiating with Czar of Trash in order
| to make that real solution a reality, is probably more
| important than being an expert trap maker. But you definitely
| want that person on your team!
| jollyllama wrote:
| The nature of the description makes more sense, given that.
| It sounded mis-targeted at first, but I was assuming they
| wanted someone who would actually be waist deep in filth
| and killing. They want someone to put a hip and sanitized
| face to those people, but who is also unconventional enough
| to respect them. They put a line in a about being hands on,
| but presumably that's a photo-op type/learning thing.
| dropit_sphere wrote:
| I feel like the qualifications should just be "competent
| Civilization player" or something.
|
| Actually I think...a lot...of jobs could be filled that way?
| chaorace wrote:
| It has been a _long_ time since I 've played a round of
| Civilization[1], but to this day I still default to framing
| almost every long-term decision in terms of "building tall" vs.
| "building wide". And then there's EU4, which has drilled into
| me an obsession with staring a ledgers all day[2].
|
| [1]: _Yaddah, yaddah... "Given the opportunity, players will
| optimize the fun out of a game"_
|
| [2]: _An unfortunate habit, given the heightened difficulty of
| pausing IRL time_
| actionablefiber wrote:
| Unfortunately, the thing that makes me competent Civilization
| player is that I spend a lot of time playing Civilization
| instead of working. I'd be happy to take a job on that basis,
| but I'm not sure I could keep it.
| slickdork wrote:
| Qualification: - Swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and
| general aura of badassery
|
| I dont want to be the director of rat extermination, but i
| wouldn't mind working for whoever writes copy on the nyc gov job
| postings.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| I actually find it pretty cringe - trying to insert
| movie/cartoon tropes into real life. Definitely written by
| someone raised on too much TV and internet.
| nix23 wrote:
| Thanks for making my day! You described exactly the picture i
| had in my mind...well plus he was from London and looked a bit
| like Sherlock Holmes (just for the interview of course).
|
| >>New York's Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation.
|
| That could be also the Director for IT security ;)
|
| Being from Europe, is that whole thing New York City humor?
| It's incredible funny:
|
| >>New York City's rats are legendary for their survival skills,
| but they don't run this city - we do.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I'm picturing Quint from Jaws.
|
| Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this
| furball for you, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad rodent. Not
| like going down to the sewer and chasing mice and raccoons.
| This rat, swallow your whole pizza slice. No shakin', no
| tenderizin', down it goes. And we gotta do it quick, that'll
| bring back your stock traders, put all your businesses on a
| payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant. I value my neck
| a lot more than three thousand bucks, chief. I'll find him
| for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But
| you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive,
| then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the
| whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no
| deputies, there's too many CEOs on this island. Ten thousand
| dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the
| tail, the whole damn thing.
|
| (I like that "island" still works because Manhattan)
| ashwagary wrote:
| I read the headline and pictured a mobster from Goodfellas.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I mean, how could it _not_ be?
| corndoge wrote:
| "Do you have what it takes? A virulent vehemence for vermin?"
|
| Vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of
| volition?
|
| I'm choosing to believe this is a v for vendetta reference
| nneonneo wrote:
| "and even attempt to control the movements of kitchen staffers
| in an effort to take over human jobs."
|
| And a Ratatouille reference too!
| bombcar wrote:
| That was also mentioned earlier in the part about "despite
| them having good PR" or whatever it was.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| The only reason this is a problem is because the city refuses to
| use containerized trash collection (such as dumpsters). Turns
| out, dumping trash bags on the street for 12 hours 3-6 times a
| week is basically a free buffet for rats.
|
| The reason the city doesn't implement containerized trash
| collection is because that would mean giving up a few free
| parking spots every block.
|
| It got worse during COVID-19 because the city temporarily
| suspended collection/extermination, which caused the rodent
| population to explode, and it's never recovered from that. But
| eliminating the regular meals for rats would be an easy, no-
| brainer way to fix it.
| pastor_bob wrote:
| I once stayed at a flat in Berlin and there were rats living in
| the building trash container. They would literally be scurrying
| on the top of the pile when I opened it up to throw trash bags
| away. Hands down my worst experience with rats, even coming
| from NYC.
|
| This was in Kreuzberg and there seemed to be a lot of rats
| there because of some abandoned buildings and construction +
| fields of dirt for them to burrow in
| dublinben wrote:
| They could adopt Taiwan's musical garbage trucks with zero
| investment in new garbage containers or loss of parking.
| Garbage bags go directly from properties into the truck,
| spending no time festering on the sidewalk.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMQ1NfjPauw
| chimeracoder wrote:
| That would require:
|
| - ensuring the truck arrives at or around the same time every
| week
|
| - forcing people to be at home to throw out their garbage
|
| Both of those are complete non-starters in NYC.
|
| Much easier to use the system that nearly every other large
| city in the developed world uses (containerized trash
| collection).
| ruddct wrote:
| An anecdote: My NYC neighborhood has seen a building boom over
| the past decade. As far as I can tell, _every_ new building
| puts its trash out on the street.
|
| Some particularly memorable examples include a 75 story
| residential tower with absolutely record-breaking trash piles,
| and a ~25 story residential tower with a trash collection point
| on the onramp to the Williamsburg bridge. Garbage trucks have
| to stop in the road to collect trash, manually, bag-by-bag, at
| every stop.
|
| This is the policy for trash in NYC, and rats will remain a
| problem as long as it stays that way.
| lazide wrote:
| Also probably due to corruption in the waste management
| industry. Why make it efficient if it makes it harder to
| graft?
| lazide wrote:
| Well, except that folks already get murdered over parking spots
| in NYC [https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/public-
| safety/2022/07/1...], [https://pix11.com/news/local-
| news/queens/man-sentenced-to-10...],
| [https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/11/nyregion/dispute-over-
| a-p...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Great, then removing parking will also reduce the homicide
| rate, in addition to starving the rats, speeding up the bus
| service, and keeping everyone from getting cancer and
| dementia. Really, is there _anything_ that banning cars doesn
| 't solve?
| stevula wrote:
| I take it you're talking about removing street parking
| altogether? If they just remove a few parking spots on each
| block for dumpsters, I can only see that leading to more
| tension and disputes over the even scarcer parking spaces.
| Why anyone would want to drive in Manhattan is beyond me.
| toast0 wrote:
| You're not thinking it through. If you dress your car as
| a locked dumpster, you can park anywhere!
| humanrebar wrote:
| Accessibility for people with disabilities.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| _The only reason this is a problem is because the city refuses
| to use containerized trash collection (such as dumpsters).
| Turns out, dumping trash bags on the street for 12 hours 3-6
| times a week is basically a free buffet for rats._
|
| The US confuses the hell out of me sometimes.
|
| How do you get to the moon and invent the internet, but can't
| figure out how to collect refuse in arguably your most
| prominent city?
| floxy wrote:
| You may have been hypnotized by movies. - New
| York City Population [0]: 8,804,190 - Population of the
| United States [1]: 333,327,000 - Percent of people
| living in NYC: 2.6%
|
| 0: https://www.nyc.gov/site/planning/planning-level/nyc-
| populat...
|
| 1: https://www.census.gov/popclock/
| subsubzero wrote:
| These problems were not around during the Giuliani/Bloomberg
| administrations. I would look who has been the the mayor
| after them for a culprit.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > These problems were not around during the
| Giuliani/Bloomberg administrations. I would look who has
| been the the mayor after them for a culprit.
|
| These absolutely were problems during the Giuliani and
| Bloomberg administration. People have been complaining
| about them for decades.
|
| It got markedly worse in spring 2020 because sanitation
| services were temporarily reduced, but it was an issue long
| before that.
| toast0 wrote:
| > How do you get to the moon and invent the internet, but
| can't figure out how to collect refuse in arguably your most
| prominent city?
|
| Most of us figured out that NYC is a (very expensive) cesspit
| and have no desire to live or work there. /s
| pastor_bob wrote:
| There's no confusion.
|
| The only solution are distributed dumpsters/large containers,
| which are not popular because nobody wants a dumpster in from
| of _their_ building
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Not meaning to come off condescending, but have you
| considered how other cities around the world have solved
| this?
|
| The Taiwan solution (garbage truck comes at the same time
| every day, stops briefly, you throw your rubbish in) seems
| to work well.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > The Taiwan solution (garbage truck comes at the same
| time every day, stops briefly, you throw your rubbish in)
| seems to work well.
|
| That requires
|
| - not running trash collection overnight/early morning
| when people are sleeping
|
| - guaranteeing that the truck arrives at a consistent and
| predictable time
|
| - forcing people to be at home at a certain time to throw
| out their trash
|
| All of those are absolutely non-starters in NYC.
|
| Much better to use the solution that every other city in
| the developed world uses (putting trash in dumpsters)
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > The only solution are distributed dumpsters/large
| containers, which are not popular because nobody wants a
| dumpster in from of their building
|
| That's not been the sticking point, empirically. The issue
| is that the politicians who can implement this don't want
| to give up the free parking spots.
|
| It's the loss of free parking that's the motivator, not the
| dumpster itself.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > nobody wants a dumpster in from of their building
|
| Yet they are happy with a large pile of black plastic trash
| bags leaking all over the sidewalk in front of their
| building?
| jetrink wrote:
| Some cities in Europe use underground containers. (An arm on
| the collection truck can lift them right out of the ground.
| It's pretty neat.) I wonder if that is feasible for NYC.
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JtoSafhvLM
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| They are still not going to allow for parking spaces. They
| need to be crane lifted to empty so it's a no parking area
| anyway.
|
| Still great! No smell, less sidewalk space wasted, and
| garbage trunks can be less frequent since the containers are
| a huge underground volume.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| This would be prohibitively expensive due to the number of
| underground utilities. In Manhattan, there isn't even a map
| of all pipes/etc. under a given street or sidewalk, because
| they were laid so long ago - every time digging is done, they
| need to carefully dig it up and see what's even there and
| document it.
|
| So there's no way to even figure out how this could be done
| without doing all the digging, etc., and at that point the
| expense is prohibitive.
|
| Not to mention that building that system would require giving
| up parking spots for the construction, which would cause the
| same political pushback from the same opponents, so at that
| point you might as well just do above-ground collection for a
| fraction of the price, since you'll be fighting the same
| political battles either way.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| There are probably too many underground utilities in most
| areas.
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